Mobile networks 'ready to meet high data demand during World Cup'

 The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) yesterday published on its website the summary results report of its extensive audit of mobile networks, conducted from August to December 2021 to assess the improvements in the Quality of Service (QoS) levels provided by service providers in Qatar – Ooredoo Qatar and Vodafone Qatar.

The audit benchmarked some of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the services provided by the service providers, which are in line with the standards and conditions of the licenses granted to them by the CRA and the applicable regulatory framework.

The audit covered mobile voice calls, short message service (SMS), and mobile Internet data services, which include the service provided through the Fifth Generation (5G) network. The audit was conducted during peak hours on working days on more than 58,000 samples from each service provider’s network that were collected from different areas in Qatar, including streets, main roads, and highways.

The CRA used its QoS systems with the latest versions of devices and smartphones, to obtain results that reflect the experience of mobile telecom consumers in Qatar.

The audit results indicate that the service providers continue to maintain high standards of accessibility, retainability and integrity of the services offered to its consumers and have made significant improvements in providing better data throughputs. With the improved 5G ecosystem, it was noticed that the service providers were able to demonstrate high download speeds in their networks to a wider environment.

Also, the outcome of the audit shows the readiness of both service providers’ networks to provide superior QoS that meet the high data demands during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. During 2021, CRA has assigned to the service providers additional 5G spectrum, including the millimetre (mm) wave spectrum, which will revolutionise the mobile broadband performance in Qatar.

CRA affirms that the purpose of the audit was not to identify the best network or do a comparison between service providers in Qatar.

The CRA emphasises that the audit’s findings should not be used for any purpose that does not serve the required value of the report, such as promoting the best service provider or taking a part or parts of the report to be used in a way that it may abuse another service provider, or to use the audit’s findings in a way that may be misleading or inaccurate considering the scope of the audit.

The summary of the results report of QoS audit of mobile networks 2021 is available at https://www.cra.gov.qa/en/document/quality-of-service-audit-of-mobile-networks-2021.