DOHA: Qatar National Broadband Company (Q.NBN) and Barwa Real Estate Company (Barwa) have signed a framework agreement furthering the Qatari government's ambitious drive to build a nationwide high-speed fibre broadband network.
The joint commitment will see Q.NBN provide Fiber-to-Home (FTTH) network to a multitude of Barwa projects spread across the country, allowing thousands of residential and commercial tenants of Barwa to utilise the next generation of connectivity.
A fully-independent company, Q.NBN has been mandated by the government to realise its goal of bringing very high-speed broadband services to 95 percent of households and 100 percent of government and businesses in Qatar by 2015.
Barwa is a leader in the real-estate sector in Qatar and has a number of projects currently either completed or taking shape at various sites across the country. For context, the company's mega project, Barwa City Phase I, alone will be home to 25,000 residents once completed.
According to the terms of the agreement, Q.NBN will ensure the installation of FTTH - through a network of underground telecom ducts - at Barwa projects, and subsequently lease it to operators to offer retail telecom services.
Q.NBN will also provide access to the FTTH infrastructure of Barwa for non-telecom services. The agreement was signed by Q.NBN Chief Executive Officer, Mohamed Al Mannai and Abdulla bin Abdulaziz Turki Al Subaie, Barwa Group Chief Executive Officer.
"As we embark on taking the country to the next level of connectivity, bringing major stakeholders on board, this national initiative is of paramount importance to us. Barwa's commitment to work with Q.NBN is a sure sign of the company's vision of approaching all their projects in a sustainable manner while enriching lives of its tenants," said Mohamed Al Mannai, Q.NBN's CEO.
"Q.NBN is committed to building a shareable fibre optic network and providing access to it on an open, equal and non-discriminatory basis to licensed telecommunications operators in order to provide telecommunications services to end users," added Al Mannai."
"In line with our mission of contribution to the sustainable growth of our nation, and specifically by investing in services, Barwa assures the continuous drive and determination to be in accord with Qatar's overarching development plan," said Abdulla Al Subaie, Barwa Group CEO. "The framework agreement with Q.NBN provides an edge in technology employed in our real estate projects that paves the way to achieving state of the art equipped property," added Al Subaie.
Q.NBN's FTTH network is expected to create a new wave of effective use of multimedia and communications applications spurring economic development and growth of knowledge in Qatar.
Q.NBN will focus solely on the deployment of a passive network infrastructure, efficiently leveraging existing and new infrastructure in Qatar. Q.NBN operates within the existing laws and under license conditions issued by Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology.
© The Peninsula 2011
