Etihad Etisalat Mobily expands coverage to 28 new highways, rural roads

Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) expanded coverage to 28 highways as part of its commitment to achieving a 100% population coverage target, according to a statement issued by the company. After almost three and a half years of operations, Mobily now covers 96% of all populated areas.

“What we now want to focus on is expanding coverage along as many rural roads and highways to tie as many populated areas as possible to allow Mobily to offer the best coverage in the Kingdom,” said Majed Al Mesmar, acting Chief Technical Officer of Mobily’s Mobile Network Development department.

Among the highways that have been covered are Majmaah-Zulfi, Shaqraa-Majmaah, old Qassim-Madina road, southern Abqaiq highway, Hail-Alfawaleq road, Khamis Mushait-Bisha, as well as other road. Mobily, according to the statement, added hundreds of towers to expand coverage to these highways to achieve coverage rates comparable to global operators. Last month, Mobily announced that it had expanded coverage to 74 villages and roads in rural areas with GSM-based 2nd generation networks and high speed packet access (HSPA)-based 3rd generation mobile technology. Among the 74 areas covered were 24 villages and roads in the Central region, 24 in the North, seven in the East, six in the south, and 10 in the Western region, as well as three rural roads.

“We want to make telecommunication services accessible to as wide a circle as possible of people in a manner that allows them to stay connected to their family and loved ones,” said Al Mesmar. Today, Mobily’s network covers hundreds of cities with conventional voice service, and over 60 cities, towns, villages and roads with HSPA-based 3.5G mobile service that allows its customers to make video calls, as well as connect to broadband Internet.

Aug 2, 2008