CITC Governor Opens Forum Introducing Regulatory Controls and Technical Solutions for Providing In-Building Coverage

His Excellency Dr. Abdulaziz bin Salem Al-Ruwais, Governor of the Communications and Information Technology Commission, opened today at the Commission's headquarters in Riyadh a forum introducing the regulatory controls for providing in-building coverage. The forum aims to introduce the controls recently issued by the Commission, highlight the latest technical solutions for providing in-building coverage, and review the latest mobile communications technologies that will be available to users at large in the near future, in order to improve the coverage and quality of mobile communications services inside large buildings such as airports, shopping malls, and others, and enable many smart applications such as indoor navigation.

His Excellency Dr. Al-Ruwais said that the Commission is making continuous efforts to improve the communications and information technology sector in the Kingdom, and to make it a leader at the regional level, having achieved good successes by the grace of God, and still has many plans to reap further successes, enhance the Kingdom's position in this field, and make its experience a reference for beneficiaries. He added that the initiatives of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the efforts of the Commission's partners in the sector have been a major support in raising the level of services, doubling the speed of mobile networks, and enabling 5G experiences.

Regarding the new regulations, Dr. Al-Ruwais explained that they aim to facilitate the rapid and economically efficient deployment of communications and information technology infrastructure, encourage network sharing and joint infrastructure establishment among service providers, and ensure fair treatment of all service providers without discrimination, affirming that the Commission, in cooperation with its partners, will continue to resolutely localize this sector and continuously improve its services, to maintain the Kingdom's leadership in it and achieve beneficiary satisfaction.

In a related context, Engineer Majid bin Mohammed Al-Muzaid, Deputy Governor for Technology and Infrastructure Sector, explained the importance of technical solutions for providing in-building coverage to ensure the appropriate delivery of communications and information technology services at a cost that does not affect sector investors, especially since 80% of communications network usage occurs inside buildings, adding that among the most prominent challenges accompanying the benefit from in-building networks are walls and building insulation weakening signal strength, and the failure to take indoor coverage requirements into account in designs during the planning stage.

It is noted that the forum was attended by Saudi Telecom, Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), Saudi Mobile Telecommunications Company (Zain), Ericsson Saudi Arabia, Huawei Saudi Arabia, and Nokia, in addition to Almasa Group, developer of smart applications, where the latest 4.5G and 5G technologies were showcased at the forum, with speeds exceeding 1 gigabit per second.