In a groundbreaking achievement, stc (Saudi Telecom Company), in collaboration with Nokia and MediaTek, has marked a significant milestone in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region's telecommunications landscape. The successful trial of 5G Reduced Capability (RedCap) Devices, using a 5G Standalone (SA) network and n1 FDD band (2100 MHz) 20 MHz Band with MediaTek’s RedCap testing platform, not only opens doors to new possibilities in IoT (Internet of Things) but also paves the way for industry 4.0 acceleration.
Previously: stc, Nokia, and Mediatek First to Activate 5G 4 Component Carrier Aggregation (4CC-CA) in MENA
A New Era of Digitization
Bader Abdullah Allhieb, Head of Infrastructure at stc, said, "This MEA-first successful trial with our long-term partner, Nokia, marks a milestone in innovation and bolsters stc's DARE Strategy, bringing additional advantages of reduced power consumption, simplified complexity, and lower costs. It also ushers in a new era of digitization, agile technology adoption, and enhanced connectivity. This achievement accelerates our performance and strengthens our commitment to connecting the market through innovative technology, ultimately propelling us towards new horizons of growth and opportunity in IoT and smart city development.”
5G Technology Empowering Innovation and Development
Ibrahim Al-Abbas, Country Senior Officer at Nokia in Saudi Arabia and Head of the Global Customer Business Team at stc, said, “Our collaboration with stc and MediaTek in this endeavor highlights our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what 5G technology can achieve. This successful trial with large, pioneering operators like stc will encourage the industry eco-system to explore the path further towards innovative smart city development and IoT use cases.”
Rami Osman, director of business development, MEA, at MediaTek said, “This collaboration with stc and Nokia is an important step in bringing new capabilities of 5G to Saudi Arabia and the advanced GCC market. 5G Redcap paves the way for cost-effective and power-efficient use cases such as wearables and next-gen IoT. We hope, by pioneering the technology in the Middle East and Africa region, MediaTek will be able to assure our customers that more innovative 5G products and services coming their way.”
RedCap, short for Reduced Capability, represents a transformative approach in the world of 5G, building upon the low latency and capacity connectivity, and high-reliability features of traditional 5G NR technologies. Innovating a new 5G paradigm for wearables and compact IoT devices, enhancing LTE Cat 4 performance, simplifying 5G device intricacies, and optimizing power efficiency. These advancements are essential for initiating the Industry 4.0 revolution. The technology focuses on simplifying 5G devices, particularly wearables, and Small Form Factor IoT devices, while maintaining impressive performance levels.