The Global Mobile Forum, MWC2020, awarded theKingdom of Saudi Arabia represented by the Ministry of Communications andInformation Technology, the pioneering government award for its excellence andin appreciation of its efforts in adopting best policies and regulations insupport of digital economy, stimulating investment and creativity, andcontributing to achieving sustainable development goals, as well as applyinginternational best practices in the telecom and information technology sector,such as its commitment to the principle of transparency, and the inclusion ofpublic views, in addition to organizational independence.
Minister of Communications and InformationTechnology, Engineer Abdullah bin Amer Al-Sawah, expressed his happiness withthe award, dedicating this achievement, as well as the rest of the achievementsby the communications and information technology sector, to the wise leadershipfor their strong support and eagerness. He pointed out that the continuousdevelopment and remarkable growth that the sector has achieved has made it oneof the most important sources of support for the economic, cultural anddevelopment sectors in the Kingdom.
He expressed his pride and pride in thequalitative shift and the great leap that the sector witnessed in the Kingdomin a short period, describing it as a result of a distinguished partnershipwith the private sector and support of all government agencies, whichcontributed to making the Kingdom at the forefront and in the ranks ofdeveloped countries in this field.
Minister Al-Sawah said that this global awardis added to the record of the march of the telecommunications and informationtechnology sector in the Kingdom, which possesses an advanced digitalstructure, legislation and regulations commensurate with the vision of theKingdom 2030 and the global developments, noting that his award will be acatalyst to move forward in the digital march that aims to take advantage ofthe outputs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and employ them to serve thecountry and the citizen.
The Kingdom is one of the first countries tolaunch the fifth generation service, as the number of towers supplying thistechnology reached 6500 towers, in addition to 541 stations in Makkah AlMukarramah and Nayum Airport, which made the Kingdom the first in the region tocover the fifth generation, and as a result of reducing service delivery feesand budgeting broadband fees, the telecom market in the Kingdom witnessed a 32%increase.
The development of this vital and importantsector has also been accompanied by a massive spread of wireless broadbandservices in non-urban areas from 1% to 42%, moreover, the speed of the mobileinternet has doubled to 57.46 Mbps, which contributed to the Kingdom gettingrank 12 globally in this regard.
The Kingdom also achieved an increase in thepenetration of wireless broadband service in non-urban areas (villages anddesertions) from 0.6% to 48% in addition to increasing the coverage of thefourth generation service from 83% to 91%, and doubling the speed of the mobileinternet about 5 times due to the freeing of more than 1100 GHz from the frequencyspectrum and making it available to operators, which made the Kingdom occupythe second position in the group of twenty countries in freeing the spectrum,and with this speed it exceeded the global average by approximately 80%.
The Kingdom also achieved 100% of thepopulation's coverage of mobile phone services through comprehensive service.The year before the previous year covered nearly 20 thousand residential areaswith basic services, and the Kingdom's ranking in adopting communications andinformation technologies rose 16 ranks within the global competitiveness indexin 2019, mainly driven by the increased penetration of mobile broadband and theincrease in the number of Internet users.
