Oman’s Ministry of National Economy has released subscriber figures for telecoms services in the Sultanate as they stood at the end of March 2007. Incumbent telco Omantel’s fixed line subscription base stood at 268,153 at the end of the first quarter. 84% of these were post-paid customers, with 16% taking the pre-paid Sahl service. Overall, subscribers fell 1.2% from the 271,456 (85% post-paid, 15% pre-paid) recorded at the end of 2006. Eleven new public phones were installed during the first three months of 2007, taking the country’s total to 6,841.
Subscribers of post- and pre-paid GSM services provided by former monopoly Oman Mobile Telecommunications Company (OMTC) and Qatar-backed Nawras Telecom rose by 7.8% to 1,960,053 (13% post-paid, 87% pre-paid) at the end of March this year, compared to 1,818,024 (14% post-paid, 86% pre-paid) at the end of December 2006.
Internet subscriptions to Omantel, the sole provider of internet services in the Sultanate, stood at 63,843 at the end of March 2007. Of these, 48,684 were dial-up customers, 13,917 were broadband users, 246 took a leased line and 996 were classed as ‘other’.