Telecommunications in Oman

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Oman Telecommunication Company (Omantel) has a monopoly in the landline telephone and internet access markets. Its arm Omanmobile offers mobile services. The Omani government owns 70% of Omantel after 30% was listed for the public in 2005. In 2005 Qatar Telecommunication Company (Qtel) and partners were awarded the second license to offer mobile services in the country under the brand of (Nawras).

In October 2007 the government overhauled Omantel board of directors and announced its plan to remerge the two arm of the company and to sell part of its share to a strategic partner. The government also slashed the royalty fee paid on revenue from 12% to 7%.

[edit] Telephone

Country Code: 00968

Landlines in use: 260,000 (2007) Prepaid (40,000) - Postpaid (220,000)

Mobile cellular: 2,200,000 (2007) Prepaid (1,900,000) – Postpaid (270,000)

Domestic: open wire, microwave, radiotelephone communications, limited coaxial cable and a domestic satellite system with 8 earth stations. International: satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Arabsat.

[edit] Internet

Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 1 (2007) Country code (Top level domain): OM

[edit] Dial-up access

Dial-up: Postpaid (50,000) plus prepaid access cards containing a username and a password which give a set number of surfing hours.

The postpaid dialup service offered by Omantel costs 3 R.O. ($8) per month plus 0.180 R..O. ($0.47) for each hour of use.

[edit] Broadband access

Broadband: (29,000)

ADSL services were launched in 2005 in Oman through the provider Omantel, the only ISP in Oman.

Packages available for home users:

512 kbit/s (0 GB bundled): costs 12 R.O. ($32) plus 1 R.O ($2.6) per gigabyte. No extra charge is calculated after downloading 27 GB which equals 39 R.O ($102) monthly.

1 Mbit/s (2 GB bundled): costs 19 R.O. ($50) plus 1 R.O. ($2.6) per extra gigabyte.

2 Mbit/s (5 GB bundled): costs 29 R.O. ($76) plus 1 R.O. ($2.6) per extra gigabyte.

4 Mbit/s (10 GB bundled): costs 39 R.O. ($102) plus 1 R.O. ($2.6) per extra gigabyte.

8 Mbit/s (unlimited access): costs 99 R.O. ($258).

[edit] EDGE and 3G

Both Omanmobile and Nawras offer access to the internet through their EDGE networks. Nawras launched its 3G network in selected areas in December 2007 with a download speed of 1 megabit. Omanmobile is expected to offer 3G services in year 2009.