Qtel harvests Pearl network

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has agreed to acquire the privately-owned communications network serving business and residential customers in The Pearl-Qatar, from the reclaimed island’s main developer United Development Company (UDC). Qtel will own and operate the IP-based fibre-optic network, and will introduce its own range of voice, high speed internet and ‘Mozaic’ IPTV services to homes and offices in The Pearl-Qatar for the first time. TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database notes that previously, the country’s second national operator (SNO) licensee Vodafone Qatar launched fixed broadband services in The Pearl-Qatar – a 400-hectare urban development connected to the capital Doha – in July 2010, via an agreement with UDC to utilise the latter’s existing next-generation fibre-based network infrastructure, and Vodafone followed this up with the launch of fixed voice services there in September 2011. There has been no announcement yet of a new agreement between Vodafone and Qtel regarding access to the network purchased by the latter.