The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has been selected by the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance as the 2020-2021 award recipient of the DSA’s Award for Wi-Fi Innovation.
This award recognizes organizations that have made significant contributions developing or deploying dynamic spectrum access technologies in support of Wi-Fi use cases like connected cars, health care, education, agriculture, and public safety. DSA revealed that it has selected CITC as the award winner for exemplifying the core value of this award and its alignments with the Alliance’s objectives of enabling advanced technologies like Wi-Fi6E.
This award comes as a recognition of CITC’s continuous effort to enable innovative wireless technologies. Last year, the Communications, and Information Technology Commission (CITC) completed an initiative to provide 60,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots in some public locations across the Kingdom. These locations include hospitals, malls, public parks and the Two Holy Mosques. In addition, CITC has recently issued its ‘3-year Outlook for Commercial and Innovative Use of the Spectrum in Saudi Arabia’, which allocated new spectrum for emerging wireless technologies to enable many use cases across different industries and verticals to help Saudi Arabia to build a digital society. In this plan, CITC has made 2,035 MHz of spectrum available for new generation of WiFi and other license-exempt technologies - more than any country in the world. In addition to faster internet speeds, adopting new generation of Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi6E) will also enable future network applications across a wide range of uses including the Internet of Things, smart homes, and virtual reality applications. CITC is currently consulting the public on radio spectrum allocation and use regulations for Wi-Fi and Wi-Gig applications.
CITC has been presented the ‘Award for Wi-Fi Innovation’ during the DSA Global Summit 2021. High-level speakers from international organizations like International Telecommunication Union, ICT Regulators in US, UK, Germany, South Africa, Mexico, UAE and Saudi Arabia, as well as technology corporations like Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Facebook participated in this global event, which took place 8-10 June online. It is worth mentioning that also the National Telecommunications Agency of Brazil and Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Peru have been selected for ‘Innovation in Dynamic Spectrum Access Policies’ and ‘Increasing Digital Inclusion’ awards, respectively.
The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance (DSA) is a global, cross-industry, not for profit organization based in Washington, DC and its charter members include technology giant firms like Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google and Cisco. DSA advocates for laws, regulations, and economic best practices that will lead to more efficient utilization of spectrum and foster innovation and affordable connectivity for all.
