By Peter Alagos
Business Reporter

With the expected completion of Phase 3 of the Ooredoo fibre roll-out next year, Qatar will be number one worldwide in terms of fibre penetration, a senior Ooredoo official has said.
Ooredoo chief operating officer Waleed Mohamed al-Sayed said two-thirds of the country, including 225,000 homes, are already connected to Ooredoo fibre, which was initially rolled out in 2013.
“Part of our programme is to install fibre optic technology to all residential and commercial establishments in the country. By next year, Qatar will be number one worldwide in terms of fibre penetration.
“There is no doubt that we will be number one because the scope of Phase 3, which started in the first quarter of 2015, includes houses that have not been built yet; we have even taken that into consideration,” al-Sayed told Gulf Times on Sunday.
The Ooredoo official also said Internet-to-home speeds have reached 100Mbps, but added that the company has plans to double or triple the speed “in the very near future.”
For the mobile space, al-Sayed said Ooredoo recently collaborated with Nokia Networks and NETGEAR for a first-of-its-kind speed test using LTE-Advanced Cat.11 on the Ooredoo Supernet.
Describing the test as “very successful,” al-Sayed said: “In the future, mobile data speeds in Qatar will reach more than 1GB, and all of this will contribute to the enhancement of people’s daily online regimen; our customers are able to stay connected wherever they are.”
Asked what measures the telecommunications company took to secure customers from cybercrimes, al-Sayed explained that Ooredeoo was working with “the best technology partners in the world” against hackers and cybercriminals.
While some companies have installed their own cyber security measures, al-Sayed said, “What Ooredoo guarantees is that for those who are subscribed to our services, we provide them with the latest technology and our best partners in cybersecurity.”
He said the "key to Ooredoo’s counter attack against cybercrimes was prevention."
“We first protect our operations to guarantee the safety of our customers. Also, Ooredoo does not wait until an attack is launched against us. If there are any attempts against us, we stop the attack at the very beginning. We do not wait until it reaches a critical stage,” he explained.
He added: “This is why we are very confident with the solutions and the level of security that Ooredoo provides its customers. On a national scale, that is the kind of protection that we deliver, but on a personal or organisational level, online security still depends on the kind of protection installed by the end user.”