Thani Al Malki (left), Chief Business Officer at Ooredoo Qatar and Samar Mittal, Head of Cloud and Network Services, MEA market at Nokia.
Doha: Ooredoo, Qatar’s leading provider of ICT solutions has announced two exciting advances in its 5G partnership with world-leading technology giant Nokia, the successful demonstration of the first data call in 5G Standalone (SA) mode as part of 5G Standalone Services trials, and the enabling of 5G devices that are Voice over New Radio (VoNR)-capable.
5G SA will enable platforms to launch new, innovative applications requiring high speeds and low latency, providing an enriched experience for such applications and use cases that need to be managed remotely in real time.
Time to market for the launch of new services will be reduced. The mode will also enable private secured virtual networks for enterprise customers, and open up additional revenue streams for Ooredoo by enabling the techco to introduce new use cases quickly, leveraging network slicing to ensure differentiated services to enterprise customers.
The enabling of VoNR devices, another country first – thanks to Nokia 5G Standalone Core will result in customers with such devices being able to make and receive supreme quality voice and video calls over a pure dedicated 5G Standalone network. Nokia’s solution enables faster call setup, faster simultaneous data services and enhanced network reliability compared to Voice over LTE (VoLTE) for Ooredoo’s customers.
Thani Al Malki, Chief Business Officer at Ooredoo Qatar said: “We are delighted with both the successful completion of the first data call in 5G SA mode in Qatar - a trial crucial to progress towards full launch of 5G SA services – and with the enabling of VoNR devices. As a global tech giant, Nokia is at the forefront of the global 5G ecosystem and we’re confident that its expertise and industry-leading solutions will enable us to provide a world-class 5G SA experience to our customers.”
The trial of 5G SA data calling paves the way for the commercialisation of 5G SA services across the Ooredoo network, enabling the techco to partner with enterprises and developers to deliver innovative use cases in domains such as Industry 4.0 with massive Internet of Things (IoT) devices demanding faster throughput and lower latency.
This will also open up the core network with open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), where Communication Service Providers (CSPs) can co-create new services with customers and partners.
For calling, Nokia 5G Standalone Core provides a flexible and scalable architecture for delivering voice, video, and messaging services over IP networks. The enabling of VoNR devices will enhance calling quality calls in comparison to devices using the current Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology.
Nokia AirFrame servers, Cloud Mobility Manager, Cloud Mobile Gateway and CloudBand Application Manager were used to conduct the data call trial. Samar Mittal, head of Cloud and Network Services (CNS), MEA market at Nokia said: “5G SA is essential to deliver several 5G use cases like Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Industry 4.0, among others. The successful data call in 5G SA reiterates the strength of our 5G solutions that enable service providers to ensure the best-in-class experience for its customers.
