The Communications and Information Technology Commission of Saudi Arabia (CITC) issued technical specification GEN002 “Requirements for specific ICT Equipment”. The specification became valid from July 20, 2021. According to this document, the CITC specifies the requirements for the following product categories:

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• Mobile phones, tablets, and mobile computers
• Mobile routers and customer premises equipment (CPEs)
• Cellular IoT devices

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Thus, mobile phones, tablets and mobile computers must support at least LTE (4G) technology. However, in this specification the CITC strongly recommends manufacturers to produce devices that can support 5G NR technology as well as WiFi 6 and WiFi 6e (5.925 – 7.125 GHz) and should also be equipped with eSIM.

The devices must support B1, B3, B8, B20, B28, B40 and B41 (2540-2640MHz) LTE frequency bands.

Please, note that starting from July 1, 2022 devices must also support 5G NR: n1, n3, n8, n28, n40, n71, n77 frequencies to get access to the KSA market.

Moreover, all handsets must support the Cell Broadcast Service (CBS) and starting from October 1, 2021 they also should meet requirements on supporting the Advanced Mobile Location (AML) emergency communication service.

The CITC reminds that all mobile phones, tablets and mobile computers must have CITC E-Label embedded in their software. The E-label shows that the device was approved against CITC requirements and can be sold on the KSA market.

The E-label should be affixed with the type approval certificate number (TA xxxx-y).  

The CITC sets the following requirements for mobile routers and CPEs:

This category of devices must support at least LTE (4G) technology and starting from July 1, 2022 also WiFi6 technology. However, the CITC recommends the manufacturers to produce devices that can also support 5G NR and WiFi 6e (5.925-7.125 GHz) technologies.  

Along with that, they should operate in the following LTE frequency bands: B1, B3, B8, B20, B28, B40 and B41 (2540-2640MHz) and starting from July 1, 2022 devices must also support 5G NR: n1, n3, n8, n28, n40, n71, n77 frequencies to get access to the KSA market.

Cellular IoT devices should support at least LTE (4G), NB-IoT, or LTE-M technologies and operate in B3, B8, B20, and B28 frequency bands.

The CITC also recommends for such devices to be able to operate on LTE/NB-IoT/LTE-M: B71 frequency band.

The full text of the technical specification you can find here.

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The information has been prepared by the GMA Consult Group team.‍

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