Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) will allocate a total of 252 million Omani Rials ($654 million) by the year 2008 to various network and service upgrade projects. In addition to the upgrade and expansion of Omantel’s existing network, the state-owned company is planning to introduce asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL) and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) as well as broadband multimedia services, e-commerce and high speed Internet.
Headquartered in Muscat, government-owned OmanTel is the country’s sole provider of elephony, mobile and Internet services. Oman’s Ministry of Telecommunications has established a regulatory agency in August 2002 to oversee the long-awaited privatization of the state-run telecom firm.
Full Internet service became available in early in 1997 and after a relatively slow start, usage increased significantly between 1999 and 2000. The network currently covers 80 percent of the population, with 98 percent of urban households owning a telephone line. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
