Fixed phone numbers up about 9 per cent in August

Muscat: The total number of fixed telephone lines in the Sultanate reached 540,350 by the end of August 2018, an increase of 8.6 per cent compared to the end of 2017, as indicated by the statistics issued by the National Centre for Statistics and Information.
The data showed that the number of mobile phone subscriptions fell by 3.5 per cent to 6,702,167 compared to 6,943,910 at the end of December last year.
Of the total mobile phone services subscribers, there were 693,591 post-paid subscriptions and 6,008,576 pre-paid subscribers.
The number of active mobile broadband subscribers in August 2018 was 4,305,810, a drop by 1.1 per cent compared to the last year. The total number of Internet service subscribers increased by 13 per cent to 397,019 at the end of August 2018 compared to 351,335 subscribers last year.
The number of fixed narrowband Internet subscribers decreased by 5 per cent to 2,288 in August 2018 compared to 2,409 at the end of 2017.
The number of fixed broadband Internet subscribers grew by 13.1 per cent to 394,731 at the end of August 2018, compared to 348,926 at the end of 2017.
The Governorate of Muscat recorded the highest number of fixed telephone lines, reaching 52 per cent, followed by Al Batinah at 14.1 per cent, Dhofar at 11 per cent, A’Sharqiyah at 7.7 per cent and A’Dakhliyah at 7.6 per cent. The Governorates of Al Buraimi, A’Dhahirah, Musandam and Al Wusta recorded 3.2, 2.7, 1.5 and 0.2, respectively, according to the NCSI data.
The total number of international Internet bandwidth capacity reached 627,896 megabits, a rise of 14.8 per cent compared to the end of 2017.
The number of national leased circuits stood as 7,982, while the number of Telex Lines subscribers fell by 16.7 per cent to reach 120.