Qtel fibre broadband goes live

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has announced the commercial launch of its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) high speed broadband service, ‘Qtel Fibre’, for residential customers in more than 16,000 homes. The telco launched packages starting at QAR233 (USD62.30) per month for internet and residential voice telephony services delivered over direct fibre, with speeds of 1Mbps, 10Mbps, 50Mbps and 100Mbps. The 100Mbps package costs QAR650 a month, and all plans include fixed voice line rental with unlimited free local calls. Having previously rolled out the fibre services on a limited basis, Qtel also announced the upgrade of existing customers’ packages to the next fastest speed. It also plans to expand its IPTV service, ‘Mozaic TV’, to the FTTH platform shortly, enabling features including high definition (HD), recording and pausing live TV. Existing Mozaic and xDSL broadband customers migrating to Qtel Fibre do not have to pay any installation costs and migrating to Qtel Fibre is absolutely free. Qtel said that expansion is ongoing to extend the FTTH service to users across Qatar, and estimated that it is connecting 1,500 additional premises per week. By 2014 it expects Qtel Fibre to cover the entire country.