Nokia and Ooredoo Qatar have successfully reached a significant milestone by establishing the Middle East and Africa first private wireless network in the region for the energy sector. The first-of-its-kind project will provide dedicated voice and customer data services in the most remote and challenging locations.

The deployed solution covers an initial capacity of 20,000 subscribers for the offshore grid. It aims to connect offshore and onshore facilities, ensuring seamless voice and data services. By offering dedicated connectivity, this network will empower customers to digitalize and automate operations, marking a significant step towards enhanced efficiency and productivity.

Nokia will supply cutting-edge products tailored to deliver resilient mission-critical connectivity, along with deployment and care services, with its resident engineers providing expert support to ensure the network operates at optimal level.

The solution offers a native offshore system designed to deliver services, seamlessly integrating with the existing commercial core, enabling customers to improve operational efficiency and reduce interruptions from onshore connectivity. The integration equally enables the efficient handling of interoperability and interservice handovers, making communication between offshore and onshore locations smoother and more reliable than ever before, while managing latency issues through localized data services to improve process efficiency. It will also improve customer experience, by replacing older Wi-Fi and WiMAX technologies.

Günther Ottendorfer, CTIO at Ooredoo Qatar, said: “This significant milestone underlines our commitment to transforming communication solutions for challenging environments. This landmark project provides dedicated voice and data services and paves the way for the oil and gas sector and others to replicate such solutions, marking a new era in connectivity for the industry.”

Samar Mittal, VP, Cloud and Network Services (CNS), Global Business Center (GBC) at Nokia MEA, said: “This Nokia enterprise solution, specifically designed for offshore locations, coupled with our delivery capabilities and expertise, ensures that the energy sector can now rely on a robust and resilient connectivity solution. Through this partnership with Ooredoo Qatar, we are setting new benchmarks for innovation, efficiency and reliability.”

Nokia has deployed mission-critical networks to more than 2,600 leading enterprise customers in the transportation, energy, large enterprise, manufacturing, webscale and public sector segments around the globe. The company has also extended its expertise to more than 675 private wireless customers worldwide and has been cited as the leading provider of private industrial grade wireless networking worldwide by numerous industry analysts.