Zain pushes 5G Advanced to new levels

Zain Kuwait has achieved a new milestone in its journey to develop 5G-Advanced networks, successfully completing the first test of its kind in Kuwait for carrier aggregation of six frequency bands, achieving speeds of up to 3 gigabits per second. This achievement reinforces Zain’s efforts to push the boundaries of 5G-Advanced technology on its award-winning network in Kuwait. The milestone marks a significant step forward in Zain’s mission to deliver faster, smarter, and more reliable connectivity, while solidifying its network leadership as a cornerstone of its corporate strategy, 4WARD – Progress with Purpose. It also contributes to enhancing Kuwait’s digital infrastructure readiness to meet the growing demands of a digital economy increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence applications.

By expanding the capabilities of its 5G-Advanced network across a broader spectrum of frequency bands, Zain is building a more robust infrastructure to support advanced digital experiences, improve indoor connectivity quality, enable AI applications on mobile devices, and keep pace with the continuous growth of data-intensive services.

With 5G services accounting for over 70% of data traffic on its network, Zain continues to invest in technologies that enhance current network performance and prepare its infrastructure for future digital world requirements. This achievement underscores the company’s role in developing Kuwait’s digital ecosystem and providing a connectivity infrastructure capable of supporting smarter, more interactive, and data-driven services.

Field tests conducted in collaboration with MediaTek confirmed download speeds reaching 3 gigabits per second, demonstrating the tangible performance leap enabled by carrier aggregation technology in 5G-Advanced. In addition to higher speeds, the technology facilitates a smoother transition from the current 4G to 5G spectrum, allowing Zain to utilize its network resources more efficiently as demand for 5G services continues to grow.

The technology is also expected to enhance 5G coverage, particularly in indoor spaces and locations where signal challenges are more pronounced. Furthermore, the carrier aggregation architecture significantly boosts uplink capacity and performance, providing the high-quality connectivity required by mobile and multimedia AI applications that rely on the rapid exchange of large volumes of data.

This achievement also supports Zain’s broader sustainability ambitions by improving network energy efficiency during the transition from 4G to 5G. The NRC66 architecture was designed to reduce energy consumption per unit of data transmitted, enabling greater network capacity and performance efficiency while contributing to Kuwait’s developmental goals in sustainability and carbon emission reduction.