Oman's total internet subscriptions, excluding active mobile subscriptions, surged by 14.8 percent to touch 403,233 by the end of September 2018, up from 351,335 by the end of December 2017.
Of this, fixed broadband internet connections, which have more than 256 kilobytes speed, increased by 14.9 percent to 400,964 by the end of September 2018, compared to the end of December 2017, according to the latest data released by Centre.
The NCSI report also noted that the number of active mobile broadband subscribers fell by 3 percent to 4.22 million by end-September 2018, from 4.35 million subscribers by the end of December 2017.
Total fixed telephone lines rose by 9.1 percent to 543,183 by the end of September 2018, from 497,716 subscribers by end-December, 2017. Also, the number of voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) lines surged by 37.1 per cent to 168,623 from 122,949 subscribers by the end of December 2017, the NCSI report added. Further, analogue fixed connections edged down by 0.6 per cent to 318,855 from 320,799 subscribers during the period under review. In fact, the public payphone connections remained unchanged at 6,801, whereas ISDN channels rose by 4 per cent to 47,303.
In fact, total number of mobile subscribers declined by 4.3 percent to 6.64 million by the end of September 2018, from 6.94 million subscribers by the end of December 2017. Of this, postpaid mobile connections increased by 7.6 percent – from 650,812 subscribers to 700,557 customers by the end of September 2018. However, pre-paid mobile connections fell by 5.6 per cent to 5.94 million from 6.29 million by the end of December 2017.
Also, number of subscribers of resellers plunged by 6.1 per cent to 993,752 from 1.06 million during the nine-month period under review.