The UAE has announced the launch of the world’s first commercial upper 6GHz network and ecosystem, positioning the country as the first market globally to transition the U6GHz band from trials to commercial deployment. The announcement was made at the SAMENA Council Leaders’ Summit 2026, led by the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority.
The U6GHz band — designated as the 6425–7125MHz range, identified in the 3GPP standard as Band n104 — offers 700MHz of continuous bandwidth, balancing wide-area coverage with high-capacity performance. Projections from SAMENA Council technology provider members indicate the band is capable of enabling peak speeds of up to 10Gbps downlink and 1Gbps uplink under 5G-Advanced. TDRA framed the launch as a step toward its ambition of making the UAE a 10 Gigabit intelligent nation and described the band as foundational for the evolution from 5G-Advanced to 6G, for which TDRA has already published a roadmap.
The commercialisation initiation ceremony at the summit saw commitments from TDRA, SAMENA, Huawei, du, e&, GSMA, Nokia, HONOR, and Tozed — spanning regulators, operators, infrastructure vendors, and device manufacturers. TDRA also called on chipmakers and device manufacturers more broadly to participate in U6GHz commercialisation. A dedicated policy and deployment alignment session chaired by TDRA’s Executive Director of Spectrum Affairs, Eng. Tareq Al Awadhi, addressed regulatory coordination across stakeholders.
At MWC 2026, Huawei launched a full-range of U6GHz products achieving C-band-comparable coverage and 10Gbps peak rates. Global operators including Vodafone, China Mobile, and Brazil TIM have completed U6GHz field tests. GSMA Head of MENA Jawad Abbassi noted the ecosystem is sufficiently mature for commercial deployment and that the Middle East can leverage U6GHz during the 5G-Advanced phase to secure a first-mover advantage in the lead-up to 6G.
Editor’s Note: The UAE’s commercial U6GHz launch — coming while Oman has only just begun a 6G readiness study — illustrates the widening gap in spectrum deployment maturity even within the Gulf, and consolidates the UAE’s position as the region’s primary testbed for next-generation mobile infrastructure. Watch whether du or e& announce specific U6GHz network rollout timelines and coverage commitments in the coming months.
