Zain pushes 5G-Advanced technology to new levels
Zain Kuwait has achieved a new milestone in its journey to develop 5G-Advanced networks, successfully completing the country’s first test of the technology to aggregate 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 most award-winning network in Kuwait.
This accomplishment represents 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 – Advancing with Purpose. It also contributes to strengthening 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 (5G-A) network across a broader spectrum of frequencies, 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 framework 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 that carrier aggregation technology brings to 5G-Advanced. In addition to higher speeds, the technology facilitates a smoother transition from the current 4G to 5G spectrum, enabling 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 greater. Furthermore, the carrier aggregation architecture significantly boosts uplink capacity and performance, providing the high-quality connectivity required by mobile AI and multimedia applications that rely on the rapid exchange of large data volumes.
This achievement also supports Zain’s broader sustainability ambitions by improving network energy efficiency during the transition from 4G to 5G. The NR6CC architecture is designed to reduce energy consumption per unit of data transmitted, allowing for greater network capacity and performance efficiency while contributing to Kuwait’s developmental goals in sustainability and carbon emission reduction.
The test combined six frequency bands using both Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) technologies, configured as 4FDD+2TDD. Specifically, 100 MHz was used on the N41 band, 100 MHz on the N78 band, 20 MHz on the N1 band, 15 MHz on the N3 band, 10 MHz on the N8 band, and 10 MHz on the N20 band, utilizing MediaTek’s M90 modem. Notably, this achievement marks the world’s first successful test of NR6CC configuration via a 4FDD+2TDD setup.
