Mobile subscriptions now outnumber people in Oman

Muscat: Oman is going totally mobile and it now has 2,235,488 more mobile subscriptions than the number of people in the Sultanate, according to the latest statistics from the Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA).
There are 6,661,166 mobile subscribers in Oman, a country with population of 4,425,678.
That is around 1.5 mobile subscriptions per capita.
The penetration of mobile subscriptions (155% per inhabitants) surpassed fixed line (10.11% of inhabitants) and fixed Internet (41.04% of households) penetration in 2015 end, according to the Report for the Indicators of Telecom Sector of Oman, issued by the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA).
Prepaid mobile subscribers by the end of April 2016 stood at 6,063,434, up from 6,045,312 in March last year, while post-paid mobile connections stood at 597,732 by the end of April, up slightly from 597,558 subscribers at the end of March last year.
Internet subscribers rise
The number of internet subscribers at the end of April rose to 256,834, from 252,886, a year ago in March.
The number of subscribers for fixed broadband, including DSL and Wimax-leased lines experienced a 9 per cent fillip at the end of April to reach 254,178 subscribers.
NCSI data also showed a growth of 4 per cent in the number of active mobile broadband subscribers to over 3,385,544 at the end of April, up from 2015.
3.6% growth in fixed telephone lines
The Sultanate’s total number of fixed telephone lines, including post and prepaid, public, WLL, and ISDN channels registered a growth of 3.6 per cent, as of the end of April, compared with the end of 2015.
The fixed telephone subscriber base stood at 450,443 at the end of April, up from the end of 2015, while the number of telephone lines was pegged at 446,918 last March, according to the figures issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information (NCSI).
Among fixed lines, fixed prepaid (card fixed) telephones witnessed a growth of 8 per cent, taking the total to 60,475 lines, while post-paid connections stood at 336,175.
The Sultanate had a total of 6,801 public telephones by the end of April this year. The number of integrated services digital networks (ISDN) stood at 45,238, whereas the number of wireless fixed lines slipped 1 per cent.