The fibre-optic backbone network is designed to deliver ultra-broadband across the country via converged wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and optical transport (OTN) technology.
Zain is the first Middle Eastern operator to deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s Agile Optical Network and is now able to offer 100G services to the main metro areas of Saudi Arabia.
Hassan Kabbani, who replaced Fraser Curly as CEO at Zain KSA earlier this year, said: “The growing appetite for bandwidth hungry mobile devices and applications is driving tremendous demand throughout our network and taking this approach provides high-capacity with the flexibility and efficiency to serve our customers today and in the future.”
The two companies are also conducting a 400G data transmission trial over an existing optical link in the city of Jeddah, western Saudi Arabia.
The trial is being carried out on Alcatel-Lucent’s 400G platform and is designed to support the emergence of high-bandwidth, high-performance connectivity.
Amr K. El-Leithy, president of the Middle East, Africa, Turkey and Azerbaijan region at Alcatel-Lucent, said: “As the first operators in the Middle East to experience the capabilities of the 400G technology, Zain has positioned itself at the forefront of high-capacity optical networking.”
