Morocco announced today that the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) will be opening bids for 4G mobile licenses in the country to provide the nation with the fastest mobile speeds available.
Bidding is expected to open later this year, with services planned for rollout in 2014. ANRT chief Azzeddinne Al Mountassir Billah said that the decision to roll out 4G service came at the request of consumers.
“This is not a luxury. The aims of adopting 4G for mobile phones are firstly to maintain the growth of this sector and secondly to improve service quality,” he said.
According to ANRT figures, 51 per cent of the Moroccan population use the internet for various purposes, with nearly 4 million citizens subscribing to internet services.
“The introduction of 4G technology will be a steep change, which will meet the expectations of customers and future requirements in terms of capacity and speed,” telecom engineer Safia Labriz told Magharebia.
Khalid Bendouah, a marketing officer for a mobile service provider, said that all of Morocco’s big mobile service providers will be entering into the bidding process, as it’s a lucrative service for them to provide.
“4G is vital for the big operators which want to offer their customers speed and capacity which can cope with data-intensive applications. A better connection allows internet users nowadays to react better to the questions that concern the development of society,” he said.
