The Sultanate’s total internet subscriptions, excluding active mobile subscriptions, surged by 20.6 percent 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 per cent 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 per cent 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 per cent 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 per cent to 179,476 from 122,949 subscribers by the end of December 2017. Further, analogue fixed connections rose by 1 per cent 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 per cent to 47,478.
The total number of mobile subscribers declined by 7.2 per cent 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 per cent to 712,622 from 650,812 subscribers in December 2017. However, pre-paid mobile connections fell by 9 per cent to 5.728 million from 6.29 million by the end of December 2017. -ONA
In addition, the number of subscribers of resellers plunged by 28.5 per cent to 756,799 from 1.06 million during the 12-month period under review.