Saudi telecom company Mobily has announced an expansion of its WiMax broadband service to Jubail, Hafr Al-Batin, Sakaka, Ar'ar and Khafji. Mobily's data arm, Bayanat Al-Oula said that all its tests on the network to ascertain its readiness were complete and the second phase of the WiMax roll-out was starting. Mobily had already introduced the service to the major cities of Riyadh, Jeddah, Al-Khobar, Dammam, Hafuf and Al-Mobarraz. Mobily's expansion comes at a time of runaway demand for its wireless broadband services, the company said. Engineer Abdulaziz Altamami, Mobily's acting chief executive officer and chief operations officer, said that the company plans to blanket the Kingdom with WiMax coverage. He added that the company is enhancing the service and increasing bandwidth in areas already covered. In June, Mobily and Samsung signed a $100m (SR375 million) deal to roll out WiMAX services in 20 Saudi cities. The Saudi telecom operator launched a residential WiMAX service in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Al-Khobar in September last year. The broadband@home WiMAX service, which offers download speeds many times faster than 3G, has proven so popular that Mobily has decided to expand its coverage using a new technology known as WiMAX Wave2.
