Zain in Saudi Arabia and Nokia Siemens Networks sign approximately US$1 billion turnkey 2G and 3G network contract

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New greenfield contract includes multi-year managed services, network operations and maintenance services.

Zain in Saudi Arabia and Nokia Siemens Networks today signed a contract to roll out a state-of–the-art greenfield mobile network in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Nokia Siemens Networks will supply a full turnkey 2G and 3G mobile network, including core and radio networks, operations and business support systems, applications and a full suite of services, including managed services.

Under the terms of the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks will provide to Zain in Saudi Arabia the latest 2G and 3G mobile network technologies, including HSDPA and HSUPA, based on the latest base station design and distributed architecture for both radio access and core networks according to the 3GPP release 4 standard. The compact Flexi base station design enables the customer to save significantly on capital and operational expenditure and allows for a fast rollout. With the distributed architecture of its mobile softswitch and multimedia gateway, Nokia Siemens Networks is able to offer Zain in Saudi Arabia a cost optimized core network solution with a fast rollout to enable new advanced services for subscribers.

Nokia Siemens Networks will deliver a full turnkey solution, including managed services for five years from a dedicated local network operations center. The US$ 935 million turnkey contract also includes network planning, implementation, project management, systems integration, logistics management, multi-vendor maintenance, field services and network optimization for the base station sites. The company will also provide a wide range of operations and business support system (OSS/BSS) solutions that will help Zain reduce operating expenses and manage the network and service quality for its subscribers. Nokia Siemens Networks will also provide Zain with its convergent prepaid solution, charge@once select, for voice and data.

Nokia Siemens Networks is the sole supplier of Zain Saudi’s core network, including the industry leading MSC Server mobile softswitch for cost-efficient voice and data services, as well as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which enables a wide range of rich communications services based on the Internet Protocol.

“This huge project will radically change the face of mobile communications in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and sets the benchmark for future mobile communications in the region. We are extremely pleased with Nokia Siemens Networks’ dedicated team, broad product portfolio and its strong history in providing best-in-class technology. We see Nokia Siemens Networks as our preferred partner in supporting our global expansion plans and in creating the largest and most advanced networks in the world,” said Dr. Marwan Al-Ahmadi, CEO for Zain in Saudi Arabia

“This project takes our long-standing collaboration with Zain, established in 1994, to a new level. We are proud to support Zain’s entry into the Saudi market with our industry-leading services and solutions. This deal is one of the most important in Nokia Siemens Networks’ history, and also very strategic for our growth in Africa as Zain is present in more than 14 countries in the region,” said Dr. Walid Moneimne, Chairman for the Middle East and Africa region, Nokia Siemens Networks.

Ahmed Othman, Head of the Zain/Celtel customer business team for Nokia Siemens Networks said “Our managed services solution is designed to ensure that Zain benefits from a reduced time to market, faster revenue generation and high network quality and availability.”

Zain, formerly known as the MTC Group, is the leading telecommunications mobile provider in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa and was recently awarded the third mobile telecommunications license for Saudi Arabia.

About Zain in Saudi Arabia
Zain (formerly MTC) is a leading emerging markets player in the field of mobile telecommunications. The company was established in 1983 in Kuwait as the region’s first mobile operator and since the initiation of its “3x3x3” profitable expansion strategy in 2003, it has grown exponentially becoming the 4th largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of geographic presence with a footprint in 22 countries spread across the Middle East and the African continent.

As of 8 September 2007, Zain became the company’s new corporate master brand name. Currently, the company is present in 7 Middle Eastern (inclusive of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and 15 sub-Saharan African countries (inclusive of the recent Ghana licence acquisition on October 22, 2007) with over 15,000 employees, providing a comprehensive range of mobile voice and data services to over 44 million active individual and business customers

The company operates under the Zain brand name in Kuwait, Sudan, Jordan, Iraq and Bahrain. In Lebanon the company operates as mtc-touch. The company plans to commence operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2008 under the Zain brand.

In Africa, Zain operates under the Celtel brand (www.celtel.com) currently in 14 sub-Saharan African countries namely: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Celtel is the most successful pan-African mobile network, offering telecommunications services to more people in Africa than any other network. The addition of Ghana will expand Celtel’s presence to 15 countries.

In January 2007, the Group launched ACE–an implementation strategy to realize the target of its 3x3x3 vision of becoming a top ten global mobile operator by 2011. ACE seeks to extract superior value from existing assets through three main thrusts: Accelerating growth in Africa; Consolidating existing assets; and Expanding into adjacent markets.

The Zain brand is wholly owned by Mobile Telecommunications Company KSC and is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (Stock ticker: ZAIN). The company had a market capitalization of over US$26 billion on 1 January, 2008.

About Nokia Siemens Networks
Nokia Siemens Networks is a leading global enabler of communications services. The company provides a complete, well-balanced product portfolio of mobile and fixed network infrastructure solutions and addresses the growing demand for services with 20,000 service professionals worldwide. Nokia Siemens Networks is one of the largest telecommunications infrastructure companies with operations in 150 countries. The company is headquartered in Espoo, Finland.
www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com

Media Enquiries

Nokia Siemens Networks
Nada Chammas
External Communications, Middle-East and Africa
Tel. +971 50 450 85 59
nada.chammas@nsn.com

Media Relations
Tel. +358 7180 31451
mediarelations@nsn.com

Zain Saudi Arabia
Saud Albawardi
Public Relations Manager
Tel. +9661 - 216 - 2227
saud.albawardi@mtctelecom.com.sa