Chinese equipment supplier Huawei has announced that it will jointly deploy what it claims to be the first G.fast network in the Middle East with Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel). The vendor says its end-to-end G.fast solution will enable the Sultanate’s incumbent telecoms operator to accelerate the rollout of high speed broadband by constructing networks more efficiently. Under the deployment plan, Omantel will reuse existing copper lines in the basements of tall buildings, and will also roll out the high-performance G.fast home gateway, which will provide subscribers with an improved experience for voice, data, video and dual-band gigabit Wi-Fi services.
Commenting on the agreement, Omantel’s VP of Operations Said bin Abdullah Al Ajmi, stated: ‘G.fast technology brings copper access into the gigabit era by delivering fibre-like speeds, which makes it possible for us to improve the experience for more customers using old copper lines and thus making the most of our existing copper network.’ By 2020 Omantel plans to cover 90% of home subscribers in Muscat; in high-value areas it expects to provide speeds of between 200Mbps and 1Gbps.