Zain Saudi Arabia in association with telecom equipment and software company Nokia conducted trial multiple, advanced 4.5G features to achieve higher throughput on path to 4.5G Pro, 4.9G and 5G.

The trial – conducted in Jeddah – of advanced 4.5G features include uplink carrier aggregation, 4X4 MIMO, downlink 256 QAM as well as uplink 64 QAM, will assist Zain to improve the mobile broadband experience for its subscribers. Zain aims to make investment in 4.5G Pro, 4.9G and eventually 5G.

4.5G features such as multi-band carrier aggregation, higher order modulation and higher MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) allow operators to increase network capacity and speed with existing radio network resources and available spectrum bands.

“With this trial with our partner, our network will evolve smoothly toward 4.5G Pro, 4.9G and 5G. This joint trial reiterates our commitment to constantly upgrade our networks in order to play our role in the digital transformation of the Saudi economy,” said Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, chief technology officer (CTO) of Zain Saudi Arabia.

Solutions used for the trial:

Nokia’s Flexi Multiradio 10 Base Station, a Single RAN Advanced platform, provided high capacity throughput

Uplink carrier aggregation software aggregated 1800 and 2100 MHz bands, creating larger, virtual carrier bandwidths and boosting the network capacity and uplink speeds of up to 43 Mbps

4X4 MIMO: Four antennas both on the base stations and mobile devices improved the network performance by 88% to reach the download speed of up to 134 Mbps per 10 MHz carrier

Downlink 256 QAM : This higher order modulation increased the downlink speed by 36% per carrier to reach speeds of up to 98 Mbps

Uplink 64 QAM: It improved the spectral efficiency and the uplink speed by 32% to reach speeds of up to 32 Mbps per carrier

Network implementation and multi-layer optimization services to plan and optimize 2x CA for maximum data throughput