Oman's total internet subscriptions, excluding active mobile subscriptions, surged by 20.6% to touch 423,567 by the end of December 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 20.8% to 421,338 by the end of December 2018, compared to the same period in 2017, according to the latest data released by National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI). The number of active mobile broadband subscribers fell by 5.5% percent to 4.113 million by end of December 2018, from 4.351 million subscribers by the end of December 2017. Total fixed telephone lines rose by 12.4% to 559,555 by the end of December 2018, from 497,716 subscribers by end-December 2017. According to the NCSI report, the number of voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) lines surged by 46% to 179,476 from 122,949 subscribers by the end of December 2017. Further, analogue fixed connections rose by 1% to 324,148 from 320,799 subscribers during the period under review. Public Telephone Payphones connections remained unchanged at 6,801, whereas ISDN channels rose by 4.4% to 47,478.
In fact, total number of mobile subscribers declined by 7.2% to 6.440 million by the end of December 2018, from 6.943 million subscribers by the end of December 2017. Of this, postpaid mobile connections increased by 9.5% to 712,622 from 650,812 subscribers in December 2017. However, pre-paid mobile connections fell by 9% to 5.728 million from 6.29 million by the end of December 2017.
In addition, number of subscribers of resellers plunged by 28.5% to 756,799 from 1.06 million during the 12-month period under review.