International Telecommunication Union Praises the Kingdom's Digital Infrastructure and Describes It as Among the Most Successful Globally

The International Telecommunication Union revealed in a recent report that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is among the most successful countries in the world in harnessing technology to confront the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, affirming that the Kingdom's focus on building digital infrastructure, its interest in technology, and the diversification of its digital economy have enabled it to deal with the effects of this pandemic in terms of increasing data consumption and rising demand for digital services.

The report revealed that there was rapid action taken by Saudi Arabia's communications and information technology system, as Saudi Arabia succeeded in achieving integration between all entities in key sectors such as communications and information technology, health, and education, and cooperating with telecommunications service providing companies to make important applications available for free use.

The report also noted that, thanks to the infrastructure in the Kingdom, average per-capita data consumption in Saudi Arabia exceeded the global average of 200 megabytes by more than three times, reaching more than 920 megabytes per day, noting that accommodating this volume of data would not have been possible without the strength of the digital infrastructure and the spectrum liberalization carried out by Saudi Arabia through significantly increasing the frequency spectrum bands allocated to telecommunications companies, by 226%, from 340 MHz in 2017 to 1,110 MHz in 2020, which placed the Kingdom in a leading position among G20 countries in terms of spectrum allocation, and effectively contributed to alleviating the additional burden on mobile internet networks and deploying 5G technologies, which saw a significant increase in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report noted that all these efforts contributed to meeting the growing demand for data, as the use of mobile and fixed data in the Kingdom rose by 34% during the period from March to June 2020, while internet speeds and access remained at a high level of efficiency.

The report attributed the strength of the digital infrastructure of Saudi Arabia's communications and information technology system to previous investments in digital infrastructure and the rapid response in increasing spectrum allocation, as the Communications Commission provided, in March 2020, additional frequencies for mobile internet service providers amounting to an additional 40 MHz in the 700 MHz and 800 MHz bands, an increase of 50% of the total frequencies used by service providers.

The report concluded by noting Saudi Arabia's cooperation with international community organizations, particularly the International Telecommunication Union, to share its successful experience in digital transformation with all countries of the world, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing use of technology across various key sectors.

Link to the International Telecommunication Union's Report: Link