Zain Kuwait to roll out LTE-A in selected areas

Zain Kuwait, the country’s leading cellco in terms of subscribers, is planning to roll out LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) in selected areas of Kuwait in a move designed to support its aims of becoming an enterprise services provider, Total Telecom reports. According to the article, Zain Kuwait CEO Omar Saud Al-Omar said that the deployment of LTE-A will be more targeted than the rollout of LTE, which currently covers 95% of the country; the executive pointed out that the process will be ‘much slower’ and will concentrate on heavily populated areas. Zain Kuwait is testing prototypes and expects to offer LTE-A enabled handsets before the end of the year or in early 2014, with smartphones following in mid-2014. Further, Al-Omar revealed that the company will utilise spectrum in the 800MHz and 1800MHz bands for the deployment, which will enable faster connection speeds and greater capacity. The executive also stated that as the company currently generates 25% of its revenue from data services, it aims to provide a better experience for its residential and business customers and establish itself as a leading enterprise service provider.