During the period between May 2014 and October 2015, the number of operators providing LTE services had increased by three operators across the Arab World.
By October 2015, Long Term Evolution (LTE) was available in nine countries in the Arab World, including all GCC countries, namely, Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In November 2011, Saudi Arabia was the only country offering LTE services, and UAE's Etisalat had just completed the deployment of its LTE network, but had not yet offered the services commercially. Whereas in October 2015 twenty operators commercially offered LTE services to their customers.
In addition to the twenty operators providing LTE services in the Arab World, the Kurdistan region in Iraq has commercially launched LTE services. Umniah Jordan began construction of its LTE (4G) networks and will launch the service in early 2016, with comprehensive coverage of all populated areas in the Kingdom.