Qtel extends FTTH contract with Huawei

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has extended its contract with China’s Huawei Technologies to implement its national rollout of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) high speed broadband network infrastructure. The latest agreement will see Qtel’s fibre broadband access network extended to cover an additional 90,000 connections, which will bring broadband coverage in the country closer to a target of passing 100% of households and businesses, reports the Gulf Times. In a joint statement, the companies said that the deployment of the additional FTTH connections had already begun. The QAR1 billion (USD275 million) ‘Qtel Fibre’ project was officially launched in January 2012, and before the latest phase of its partnership with Huawei began, Qtel said that it had rolled out a fibre network passing 126,000 homes, with 30,000 households connected to the FTTH network, 10,000 of which are already receiving fibre-based services including internet access at speeds of up to 100Mbps.