Kuwait Telecommunications Company – stc, deploys its fully converged core “5GC” network in the region
Kuwait Telecommunications Company – stc, announced the successful deployment of the first fully 2G/3G/4G/5G NSA & 5G SA converged core “5GC” network in the region. stc is the first operator to launch a 5G standalone network and announced readiness for Vo5G in the region one year ago. So far, only three operators from China have successfully deployed a fully converged core network in their network, and with this announcement, stc has become the first global operator to deploy such a solution outside China successfully.
This announcement has opened new avenues and will bring new services to consumers and opportunities to enterprises to serve their customers in innovative ways. The converged core solution deployed by stc KW provides us with new capabilities to serve the customers looking towards a path of digital transformation. With this new deployment, stc can give the consumers ultra-reliable high-speed connectivity over 5G and offer new charging models as suitable and demanded by customers. For enterprises, stc will now be able to provide advanced slicing offers, which can provide priority differentiation based on customers’ requirements.
For deploying the converged core, stc has chosen a solution based on a microservice architecture that ensures that the network is scalable and always ready to accommodate an ever-growing number of users. The solution has built-in infrastructure & link fault redundancies, making it ultra-reliable. stc’s converged core network solution supports not only 5G SA & 5G NSA architectures but also 2G,3G & 4G networks, making it capable of delivering growing digital transformation demands from customers while delivering an excellent user experience and reducing the time to market for new digital services.
“Having launched first ever commercial end-to-end 5G SA network in MENA region last year and now becoming first to deploy first fully converged core network which supports secured Vo5G with latest releases of secured SIM/eSIM technology shows our relentless pursuit to offer cutting edge digital services to consumers and enterprises in Kuwait. I am confident that the launch will serve as a major step toward enabling a digital Kuwait of the future and realising the vision of 2035” Eng. Fahad Abdul Rahman Al Ali, CTO, stc Kuwait.
In addition to launching 5G one Core and Vo5G, stc has also enabled the next generation of encryption of user identity on its network using Subscription Concealed Identifier (SUCI). Every user on a mobile network has unique identity knowns as IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity). Under previous generations, the identity is concealed with a temporary identity, which may be prone to malicious attacks. With SUCI, stc network will encrypt all user identification before it leaves the device, making it much more secure from advanced cyber-attacks.
