Zain Bahrain participated in the WiMAX 2007 Conference, a major telecom event relating toWiMAX technology, in Munich, Germany.

In a presentation entitled “Zain Bahrain – Pioneering a nationwide data and voice WiMAX network”, Zain Bahrain’s network director Esam Zainal presented Zain’s experience as a leading company in deploying a Next Generation Network (NGN) that is based entirely on WiMAX.

Zain Bahrain has pioneered the introduction of the two innovations together. An NGN is a network that carries all services, including voice, data and video, on the same network, using the TCP/IP protocol, said an official spokesman.

WiMAX, is a wireless access technology that enables wireless “last-mile” connection of customers to the network, and can be fixed, nomadic, or mobile. To customers, this combination of technologies means that broadband Internet and telephony services can be provided anywhere and immediately, as no laying of cables is required, using a single device at the customer’s premises to which phone sets and computers or LANs are connected.

Zain Bahrain launched the service for the residential sector on September 2007, under the name of Zain@home. Extending the service to the business sector is planned for the first quarter of 2008.

The introduction of the service comes following Zain’s winning of one of two National Fixed Wireless Services licenses awarded by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in January 2007.

Within eight months Zain launched the service commercially, with about 95 per cent population coverage, thus launching nine months earlier, and achieving full coverage more than three years earlier than mandated by the license.

Zain-Bahrain’s experience in this regard is unique compared to any other network operator in the world.

“Most other operators that have deployed WiMAX have done that as an extension to their cable networks for providing internet services to remote areas,” added Zainal.

“Zain’s experience of using WiMAX exclusively throughout the country and also combining it with NGN is a quite unique experience. As one of pioneering operators in this field, we shared with others at the conference some of our learnings,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service