Vodafone Qatar to deploy 4.5G across its network ‘in a few months’

Vodafone Qatar has announced that it will deploy 4.5G LTE-Advanced Pro (LTE-A Pro) technology across its network ‘in the next few months’ in partnership with China’s Huawei, augmenting its existing commercial LTE-A ‘4G+’ services. A company press statement also disclosed that Vodafone Qatar and Huawei had achieved data speeds of 1Gbps in a test environment using 4.5G technology, whilst reaching 4.5G speeds of 780Mbps on live sites in Vodafone’s network, which would allow the download of a 3GB HD movie in around half a minute. Zong Yan, CEO of Huawei Qatar, said: ‘A 4.5G network enables Vodafone Qatar to offer its customers true broadband speeds that haven’t been experienced in the region before, and pave the way for the introduction of more advanced mobile services in the near future.’ Ian Gray, CEO of Vodafone Qatar, added: ‘The introduction of a 4.5G network will enable the implementation of smart city technologies such as the Internet of Things and cloud services in the country … Vodafone is committed to continually investing in Qatar’s ICT sector, which will play a key role in realising Qatar National Vision 2030.’