Alfa, a mobile operator managed by Orascom TMT, has selected Nokia AirScale 5G-ready radio platform, to deploy 4.5G Pro technology in Lebanon.
Nokia AirScale radio platform will support Alfa to introduce Gigabit LTE speeds for its subscribers.

Alfa will use Nokia’s AirScale radio, three-carrier aggregation technique, 4×4 Multiple Input and Multiple Output (MIMO) and 256 QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) to achieve higher throughput, along with Category 16 (Cat 16) capable devices.

Nokia, the Finland-based telecom network maker, already announced 4.5G Pro and 4.9G in September 2016 to enable operators such as Alfa to meet the ever-increasing data demands of their subscribers.

“We will be deploying the first 5G network in the country in 2019 through this 4.5G Pro deployment,” Marwan Hayek, CEO of Alfa, said.

Alfa and Ericsson early this year conducted 5G trials.