01 March 2015
A new era in UAE telecom

du becomes the first CAT-6 ready 4G LTE network in UAE

Dubai - Marking yet another first, du - the Middle East's fastest growing telecommunications service provider announced the successful introduction of the first LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) live network in the UAE, making it the very firsttelco with CAT-6* ready LTE network in the UAE. This reiterates the UAE's global standing as a frontrunner intelecomand marks an important step closer to 5G technology.

The launch of the LTE-A Carrier Aggregation capability would allow du to offer its customers unsurpassed mobile broadband speeds up to 225Mbps - therefore marking a clear enhancement of customers' user experience in terms of upload or download speeds or audio and video streaming. More importantly, the new capability targets the significant increase in the average user throughput in addition to the superior coverage. Significantly, this also paves the way for more leading smartphone manufacturers to commercially launchan expanded range ofLTE-A CAT-6 handsets in the UAE.

SaleemAlBlooshi, Executive Vice President, Network Development and Operations, du, said: "We are proud of achieving this tremendous milestone. This is a result of our "smart investment" strategy that puts customers at the heart of our focus and we are very keen on introducing capabilities that can be utilized and experienced by our customers immediately, much beyond simply focusing on announcing higherspeeds. Having said that, it is important to note that we have invested in such technology once we started to get confirmation from the major smartphone manufacturers that this capability (a.k.a. CAT-6 capable handsets) is readily available in many of these new smartphones already launched in the UAE. With our launch of LTE-A in the UAE, customers using any of these new CAT-6 smartphones will enjoy new unprecedented speeds when in an area covered using this new technology".

"We are excited that this important milestone also represents another step forward towards du's readiness to the Smart City vision by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai."

du commercially launched LTE1800 on June 12, 2012. In August 2014 du announced VoLTE has been successfully installed and tested over its commercial LTE network and demonstrated VoLTE calls during GITEX 2014 and commercial launch is expected Q1/Q2 2015. du has successfully demonstrated LTE-A with 900Mbps over its LTE network in GITEX 2014 by combining three carriers with MIMO 4x4. du has also successfully tested LTE-Advanced with carrier aggregation over it is commercial network with 300Mbps peak throughput by combining band 20 (800 MHz) and band 3 (1800 MHz) in July 2014.

* CAT-6 denotes the LTE Handset Category information (Category 6) which is used to allow the Mobile Network to communicate at a higher speed and be able to combine two bands as specified in 3GPP. The CAT-6 commercial smartphones started to be available at the beginning of 2015.

-Ends-

About du
We started operating in 2007, offering mobile and fixed telephony, broadband connectivity and IPTV services. Today, we serve more than 7.5 million individual customers and over 80,000 businesses in the UAE. We also provide carrier services for businesses and satellite up/downlink services for TV broadcasters. We won the Gallup Great Workplace Award.

Our recruitment strategy aims to provide fulfilling opportunities for quality talent in a cosmopolitan working environment where more than 60 nationalities work 35% of which are Emiratis. We are the first telecom company in the world to release a Sustainability Report based on GRI-G4 comprehensive guidelines. Among our other laurels, we also have the credit of being the first in the UAE to be awarded with prestigious LEED Platinum certification for 2 of our green retail outlet.

du is 39.5 percent owned by Emirates Investment Authority, 20.08 percent by Mubadala Development Company PJSC, 19.5 percent by Emirates Communications and Technology LLC and the remaining by public shareholders. Listed on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM), the company trades under the name 'du'.

For further information, please contact:
Saugat Chatterjee
PR Lead (B2B)
Brand & Communications
du
Mobile: +971559367045
Email: Saugat.Chatterjee@du.ae

Reka Sepsy
LeoComm PR
Tel: +971 4 367 6154
Mobile: +971 55 220 68 20
Fax: +971 4 367 2615
Email: reka.sepsy@leocommpr.com

© Press Release 2015