Qtel extends FTTH contract with Huawei

Huawei says that it has been awarded a contract extension from Qatar Telecom (Qtel) that will see the systems house provide equipment for the second phase of Qtel’s national fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) deployment. Qtel expects its national FTTH network to provide download speeds of up to 100 Mbps to the entire nation of Qatar.

Qtel launched the national FTTH project in 2010, with a goal of 100% coverage of households and businesses in Qatar within two years. The carrier began offering services on the network early this year (see "Qtel Fibre brings FTTH Internet to Qatar").

Huawei has provided equipment from its SingleFan portfolio throughout the project (see “Huawei deploys trial FTTH network for Qtel in Qatar”). For Phase 2, Huawei will provide a turnkey package that includes the central equipment room, optical distribution nodes (ODNs), optical line supervision (OLS), optical access equipment, and other gear. The project will provide 90,000 additional connections.

"It is an important strategic alliance that will contribute to the growth and development of Qatar, making it one of the best-connected countries in the world,” said Qtel's COO Walled Mahamed al-Sayed. “The rollout of these additional 90,000 connections has already begun. We have already laid fiber passing 126,000 homes, have connected 30,000 homes to the fiber network, and 10,000 households are already enjoying the fiber services."

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