Tripoli-based Alkafaa Partners with Mimosa to Boost Speeds and Avoid Interference in Congested 5 GHz Spectrum

In the capital city of Tripoli, internet service provider Alkafaa is helping to rebuild Libya’s telecommunications sector by delivering fiber-fast speeds to the city’s residential customers, government institutions and local businesses. Following the disruption of Libya’s civil war, massive investment is now pouring in to rebuild the country’s telecom infrastructure, and the timing was perfect for Alkafaa to bring back desperately needed broadband service.

One of the most challenging aspects of getting its high-speed network operational was overcoming the interference in Libya’s very congested unlicensed 5 GHz spectrum. With the ability in Libya to operate across a broad spectrum of channels, Alkafaa turned to Mimosa Networks for its broad product portfolio and effective interference mitigation features, including support of extended frequency operation from 4.9-6.4 GHz. Deploying both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint links in these wide ranging spectrum bands, Alkafaa has boosted speeds to over 500 Mbps with the Mimosa links. Government institutions and businesses can request internet speeds up to 500 Mbps, while residential customers can see speeds of 50 Mbps.

“In a large city like Tripoli, it was really important for us to be able to find clean spectrum,” said Almahdi Basheer Ben Zayed, Head of the Technical Department at Alkafaa. “Our ability to leverage Mimosa’s unique extended frequency range support offered us a huge advantage by helping us get out of the noise of standard Wi-Fi channels and into cleaner spectrum.”

““Our ability to leverage Mimosa’s unique extended frequency range support offered us a huge advantage by helping us get out of the noise of standard Wi-Fi channels and into cleaner spectrum.””

Zayed cites easy installation, simple configuration, cloud tools and customer support as additional features Alkafaa loves about Mimosa. “Mimosa’s support team is the best – they have a great response time and are always able to give me the best solution and documentation!”

The Alkafaa network includes both point-to-point backhaul using Mimosa’s B5, B5c and B5-Lite radios, and a large point-to-multipoint access network, using A5c connectorized access points, and both C5 and C5c client devices. The majority of the point-to-multipoint network is deployed in Mimosa’s signature MicroPoP architecture, densely situating the access points close to the subscribers using Mimosa’s SRS sync technology, in applications ranging from fixed broadband access to video surveillance.

In addition to the customers Alkafaa serves in urban Tripoli, the company also delivers high-speed internet service in Alazizia, 80km from Tripoli. Between the two locations, Alkafaa is working hard to meet customer demand and has plans to partner with Mimosa to scale to over 5,000 subscribers within the coming year.

According to Zayed, “We are pleased to partner with Mimosa as we expand our network in Libya. Our customers’ satisfaction is the most important thing for us, and with Mimosa, we are able to provide a stable service with all of the technical solutions our customers desire.”