Nokia said telecom operator Zain Saudi Arabia used centralized RAN technology to enhance upload speed by up to 50 percent for uploading content for 60,000 sports fans at Al Jawhara stadium.

Zain Saudi Arabia has gained as the improvement in network capacity led to 31 percent increase in uplink traffic compared to previous events held at the Al Jawhara stadium.

Mobile Internet users of Zain Saudi Arabia will benefit from Nokia C RAN deployment as it will improve uplink connections and quality of experience for visitors to football matches and other events at Jeddah’s largest stadium. Fans can now share photos and videos via social media at faster speed.

Zain selected Nokia’s centralized RAN technology to improve uplink performance, deploying clusters of LTE base stations within the stadium to optimize bandwidth and remove uplink congestion in the 1800 MHz bands.

Nokia said its Professional Services helped Zain to design, test and optimize the performance of the new centralized RAN technology.

“We have deployed Nokia’s Centralized RAN technology to boost the uplink speed for fans while also improving their smartphone battery life,” said Sultan Abdulaziz AlDeghaither, chief technology officer at Zain Saudi Arabia.