Mobile telecommunications infrastructure boosted for Hajj

The General Authority for Statistics in KSA (GASTAT) has published an infographic of ICT services provided to Hajj pilgrims. The Hajj, involving an estimated 2 million pilgrims this year, is a religious requirement for Muslims and runs from 19 August to 24 August.

According to the infographic, 7,411 employees from five different sectors are working to provide 15 essential services 24x7 under the aegis of the Communications and Information Technology Commission.

There are 69 branch offices for telecommunications services in Makkah this year, plus 15,927 2G, 3G and 4G cell towers for mobile communications in Makkah, Mina, Muzdalifah, Arafat, Madinah and at the Grand Mosque (Masjid Al-Haram) in Makkah. The various cities are all key to Hajj rituals. Nearly 3,000 of the cell towers in Makkah and Madinah were introduced for Hajj 2018. Additionally, telecom and Internet services are available at air, land and sea ports as well as along roads to serve pilgrims.

The number of 4G cell towers increased by 42.9% over Hajj 2017 at the Grand Mosque; was up 24.4% in Makkah, rose by 106% at the holy places, and went up 24.5% in Madinah. The Saudi Communications & Information Technology Commission (CITC) separately said that there has been a 15% increase in network capacity. GASTAT said the increase in 4G network capacity at peak hours for Hajj 2018 reached 80% at the Grand Mosque, 84% in Makkah, 182% at the holy places, and 36.3% in Madinah. There are also 3,000 Wi-Fi hotspots available.

KSA's telecommunications companies have more than 460 sales points available at the holy places to provide SIM cards, data SIM cards and recharge cards, as well as providing technical support centres with various languages to serve pilgrims.

The CITC branch in Makkah periodically checks audio and Internet quality, scans the frequency bands of mobile networks at the two main mosques as well as the connected highways between Makkah, Jeddah and Madinah to ensure the quality of mobile services. It also deals with any harmful interference that may affect the performance of the network and allows the use of frequencies of each mobile service provider to increase the capacity of the network and improve the level of services provided to Hajj pilgrims. This year, CITC mandated an 80MHz increase to the mobile frequency spectrum to help deliver better cellular services and faster Internet speeds.

Source: GASTAT. Information and communication technology services for Hajj 2018.

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Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about KSA's Smart Hajj initiative