Oman's total internet subscriptions, excluding active mobile subscriptions, surged by 5.1% to touch 446,039 subscriptions in May 2019, up from 424,284 by the end of December 2018.
Of this, fixed broadband internet connections, which have more than 256 kilobytes speed, increased by 5.2% to 443,884 in May 2019, whereas fixed narrowband internet connections, which have less than 256 kilobytes speed, fell by 3.3% to 2,155 subscriptions at the end of May 2019, according to the latest data released by National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI). The number of active mobile broadband subscribers rose by 0.9% to 4.150 million in May 2019, from 4.113 million subscribers by the end of December 2018. Total fixed telephone lines rose by 2.6% to 574,627 at the end of May 2019, from 560,326 subscribers by end-December 2018. According to the NCSI report, the number of voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP) lines surged by 6.7% to 192,300 from 180,186 subscribers by the end of December 2018. Further, analogue fixed telephone lines rose by 0.2% to 324,926 from 324,129 subscribers during the period under review. Public payphone connections remained unchanged at 6,801, whereas ISDN channels rose by 2.9% to 48,949 subscribers.
Total number of mobile subscribers increased by 2.5% to 6.601 million by the end of May 2019 compared to 6.440 million subscribers by the end of December 2018. Of this, postpaid mobile connections increased by 3.2% to 735,316 from 712,622 subscribers in December 2018. Pre-paid mobile connections also rose by 2.4% to 5.866 million from 5.728 million at the end of December 2018. Also, number of subscribers of resellers rose by 2.5% to 776,084 from 756,799 at the end of December 2018.