The total mobile subscriptions in Oman fell by 2.7 per cent to 6.76 million by the end of March 2018, from 6.94 million by end-December 2017.

In fact, post-paid mobile subscriptions rose 2.8 per cent to 669,148 by end-March 2018, from 650,812 by the end of December 2017, shows the latest monthly statistics released by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI). However, pre-paid mobile subscriptions fell by 3.3 per cent to 6.09 million by end-March 2018, from 6.29 million subscribers by the end of December 2017. In addition, number of subscribers of resellers plunged by 6.7 per cent to 987,751 from 1,058,512 during the three-month period between January and March of this year. The NCSI report also noted that the country has fixed broadband internet connections, which have more than 256 kilobytes speed, increased by 7.1 per cent to 373,719 connections in the first quarter of 2018. Also, the total number of internet subscribers in Oman, excluding active mobile broadband services, rose by 7 per cent to 376,088 during January-March period of 2018, added the NCSI report. 

The NCSI report also noted that the number of active mobile broadband subscribers fell by 2 per cent to 4.26 million by end-March 2018, from 4.35 million subscribers by the end of December 2017. Total fixed telephone lines increased by 4.9 per cent to 522,331 by the end of March 2018, from 497,716 subscribers by end-December, 2017. The number of voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) lines surged by 10.7 per cent to 136,117 from 122,949 subscribers by the end of December 2017, the NCSI report added. Besides, analogue fixed connections edged up by 3.2 per cent to 331,050 from 320,799 subscribers during the three-month period under review. In fact, the public payphone connections remained unchanged at 6,801, whereas ISDN channels connections rose by 2.6 per cent to 46,688.