The Sultanate celebrated World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, which falls on 17 May marking the anniversary of the first International Telegraphic Convention and the founding of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on this day in 1968.
Data from the National Center for Statistics and Information (NCSI) indicate that by the end of 2016, fixed telephone lines reached 73.5% of households in Oman, while the penetration of mobile phones and fixed internet reached 150.9% and 46.9% respectively. Data indicate that last year, the number of analogue fixed telephone lines stood at 297,094, while the number of public payphones reached 6,801 telephones. ISDN channels and VoIP lines numbered 43,672 and 73,377 respectively. There were 1574 WLL connections as well by the end of 2016, according to NCSI data.
Significantly, IN 2015 Oman logged over 420.473 million fixed telephone calls.
The total number of mobile phone users in Oman reached 6.866 million in 2016, including 6.25 million prepaid users and 614,482 postpaid mobile users.
As for Internet subscriptions, the total number of fixed Internet users reached 269,549, while mobile broadband Internet users exceeded 3.937 million. Total international Internet bandwidth capacity reached 340,760 Mbps last year.
The number of national leased circuits stood at 3,858, while telex lines reached 186 subscriptions. In terms of human resources, the total number of employees in telecommunications service providers in the Sultanate reached 3,939 workers, with 24.2% of them being females. The number of Omanis working in the sector stood at 3,232, with females accounting for 26.1%. The largest group of workers in the telecommunications service companies was made up of university graduates at 1,360, followed by diploma holders at 1,023 and secondary school certificate holders at 856. Employees having master's degree numbered 306, while those with a doctorate degree numbered 10.
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