Page 77 - SAMENA Trends - December 2020

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

examines challenges, growth and trends of Internet routing Technology and highlighted the importance of Digital Cooperation,
and infrastructure in eight Arab countries including Kuwait. He Government Engagement, and Internet Regulations that Support
stated: “Over the years, the RIPE NCC has remained steadfast Technology. The meeting was attended by H.E. Loutfi Bashareef,
in its commitment to work closely with various governments Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunications
and provide them with the necessary training and knowledge to of Yemen; H.E. Ahmad Al-Hananda, Minister of Digital Economy
address today’s digital challenges. We recommend the work that and Entrepreneurship in Jordan; H.E. Dr. Ishaq Sidr Minister of
CITRA is doing and look forward to continuing our work together Information & Communications Technology in Palestine; H.E.
to harness the Internet for the greater good and for everyone." Dr. Ali Nasser Al-Khoieldi, CEO of the Communications and
Christian Kaufmann, Chair of RIPE NCC Executive Board said: “This Media Commission in Iraq; Mirjam Kühne, RIPE Chair and Niall
Roundtable Meeting is very important for us to share information O'Reilly, RIPE Vice Chair, in addition to high level delegations and
and updates but also to understand the needs of governments representatives from Governments and Regulatory Authorities
and regulators in the region and how to support them. I also from kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates,
want to stress out the importance of the RIPE NCC Dubai office Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt. The
to facilitate technical support and capacity building in the region. roundtable event served as a successful follow-up to the previous
He added: “It is one of our fundamental goals to connect people, year's events held in the region. The RIPE NCC and CITRA have
therefore we take sanctions in the region very serious as a Board, expressed their commitments to continuously support the
and these issues have our full attention and support.” The first development of Internet infrastructure in the region through their
panel discussion of this virtual roundtable, which was titled “The joint-initiatives and efforts. The RIPE NCC endeavors to maintain
RIPE NCC and Arab Governments Cooperation” was led by Chafic stable and resilient Internet connectivity through its provision
Chaya and Hisham Ibrahim from the RIPE NCC. It discussed the of IP address registration, maintaining key infrastructure, and
collaboration of RIPE NCC with Arab governments and regulators contributing to the security of Internet routing. The online event
investigated the status of the Internet infrastructure in the falls in line with the RIPE NCC's strategy to support governments
Arab countries. The second panel discussion was led by Chris with the needed technical expertise to serve their wider Internet
Buckridge and Marco Hogewoning from the RIPE NCC, which community.
tackled the topic of Internet Governance: Regulations to Support (December 20, 2020) ripe.net

Nepal

A committee formed by Nepal’s telecoms regulator the committee has recommended assigning 10MHz to 20MHz of
National Telecommunications Authority (NTA), the Ministry of frequency bandwidth in the 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2300MHz and
Communications & Information Technology (MoCIT) and telecom 2600MHz bands, the first three of which are already in use.
operators has identified possible frequency bands for use by the For the mid-range frequencies, 100MHz of spectrum could be
country’s 5G networks, reports Nepalitelecom.com. The National allocated in the 3300MHz, 3600MHz and 4700MHz bands, all
Frequency Management Forum has advocated earmarking of which are not currently used for existing mobile networks.
spectrum in low-band, mid-band and high-band ranges for 5G Finally, for the high band, also called mmWave spectrum, the
networks, while the authorities could also make existing 2G, 3G committee recommended providing between 800MHz and 1GHz
and 4G licenses technology neutral to enable existing frequency of bandwidth in the 26GHz range.
allocations to be used for 5G services. In the lower range, the (December 16, 2020) commsupdate.com

Oman

Oman’s total fixed internet subscriptions rose 6.9 per cent to 0.7 per cent to 591,316. According to the NCSI report, the number
touch 506,091 at the end of November 2020 compared to the same of voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) lines surged by 11.8 per
period for 2019. Of this, fixed broadband internet connections, cent to 236,906. Further, analogue fixed connections fell by 8.6
which have more than 256 kilobytes speed, rose 6.9 per cent to per cent to 298,361 at the end of November 2020 compared to the
504,049 at the end of November 2020, according to the latest data same period of the previous year, whereas ISDN channels fell 2.4
released by National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI). per cent to 47,823. Total number of mobile subscribers fell 1.1 per
The number of active mobile broadband subscribers rose 12.1 per cent to 6.22 million until the end of November 2020 compared to
cent to 5.31 million at the end of November 2020 compared to the the same period of 2019. Out of this, postpaid mobile connections
same period of 2019, whereas total fixed telephone lines fell by increased by 26.8 per cent to 976,772, and pre-paid mobile

77 DECEMBER 2020