New era for Fixed-lines in Oman

Oman’s Telecoms Regulatory Authority (TRA) has finally awarded the second fixed-line license tender to PCCW - Awaser Oman Consortium, and it’s coming to an end of monopoly for the majority state-owned Omantel. Pacific Century Cyber Works (PCCW), an Hong Kong-based telecom company joint venture with a Omani partner and Nawras, the 2nd mobile company had lost the bid tender.

That's means new job will be created soon for the Omani Market beside the five mobile reseller companies.

Voice Over IP (VOIP) Banned in Oman

A piece of news that not many have taken note of is the recent Ministerial Decision issued by the Telecommunications Regulation Authority regulating the provision of Internet service in public commercial venues. While it has been rumoured for long that Skype and similar services are banned in Oman, this is the first time I come across an actual piece of legislation that explicitly prohibits the Voip and renders it illegal.

The Decision was issued on 12th of September and has only been published in the latest issue of the Official Gazette that came out yesterday. Article one of the Decision defines (in Arabic) Voip as a service for delivering audio conversations via the Internet using Internet Protocol instead of the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN).

Article 9 later prohibits an internet service provider in public and commercial venues from offering VOIP services or offering any help or guidance on how to use this illegal service. Punishment for violating this Decision include the right to close the internet cafe for a month and revoking its license if the breach is persistently repeated.

I think that the definition of Voip is lose, any audio conversation on the internet is carried over IP protocol and it is done instead of PSTN. When you have a voice chat over MSN you are using Voip, when you talk over Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, and all those services you are using Voip. It is clear that they are targeting services such as Skype which let you call regular phones using Voip, but that definition goes way beyond that.

The TRA does not understand that there are loads of Voip services out there, it is possible to use an instant messenger on a mobile device to make an audio conversation with another using the same instant messenger using another mobile device, so that we are using Internet voice chat but on a mobile device with no Skype-out like functionality.

I think that banning Voip services is unfair, we as consumers should have the right to use the Internet that we pay for in whatever way we choose. We do not care if it is bad for the business of Omantel, Oman Mobile, or Nawras. All of those three companies offer data services (whether cabled or otherwise) and promoting Voip is a promotion for using their services.

The use of Skype is rumoured to be unofficially crippled by Omantel to stop home users from making use of its service.

Hoax emails are passe, await phone calls now!

Tele-Mess (1)

The telecommunications sector, alongside with the transportation sector, is one of the foundations to an economic and social prosper. The gateway to opening new financial horizons with the outside world and the birth of the milestone that will lead nations marching proudly up the ladder. From being third world countries to developing ones, and from developing ones to developed ones.

In Oman, that potential is bottlenecked by many difficulties. I firmly think that the telecommunications sector is one of the biggest challenges to that potential. I think We owe this amount of communicational retardation to two companies that are straightforwardly the main causes to this problem. OmanTel and Oman Mobile, sadly, the "leading" companies in the communications sector, but the only thing these companies are leading are us deeper in the mud pit.

For more than 10 years now, Omantel has been the sole internet service provider in the country, a position that has given it clear advantage, which instead of being used to improve their status, was used strictly to momentary financial success.

Omantel, despite it's flourishing ever-rising bank accounts, is no where near successful. Their lack of an investment policy is an extremely risky way to be in the market. They refused to invest in the public in a way that they would want to make Omantel their first choice instead of the only one. As soon as another Internet Service Provider company offers it's services, people will salvatorily gallop towards it because no matter how bad it could be, there's nothing worse than Omantel.

The dial up internet's tarriff has been anything but erratic. That 180Bz/Hour is so fortified that one would think it's taken a life of it's own and there's no way Omantel or anyone (TRA cough TRA) can do anything about it. Expensive I'd say, but I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to raise the price. I mean everyone knows that things lose price after they get outdated, but get explosively overpriced as soon as they become 'Classic'. Dial-up has definetly earned to be a classic, so a price raise for it's newly well-deserved status is only logical.

That's how old and outdated our services are. Old enough that if they were people, they'd be stone statues in public parks. A token of our appreciation for their past contributions. Sadly in our case, the person lives, and is the primary option of connection to the International Network.

One would argue that Omantel has, thankfully, provided us approximately three years ago with the blessing with a 'broadband' mean of connection. PowerNet (more like Lack-of-PowerNet), Omantel's commercial name for ADSL 'broadband' internet connection with speeds -ideally- clocked at 384Kbps for home users. Non Ideally, it underpreforms in what already is an underperformance, because that's extremely slow in comparison with the current international internet offerings, and pathetic in comparison with the regional ones.

Either way. ADSL is better to live with, right ? .. Wrong. I bet you to go tomorrow to Omantel and apply for ADSL, and tell me after 4 weeks if you already have the connection. Hell make it, 8 weeks. Their list of excuses is limitless. Prepare to hear that in your location, the divisions for ADSl service are full, but they'll put you on the "waiting list". Or they'll tell you that they'll come in 3 weeks, because their technicians are 'busy', and come really in a little short of 3 months. I won't go too deep with ADSL, because I previously talked about it quite extensively here in my blog, and that doesn't end there, I'm intentionally not talking about the prices, or the 'Omantel' usage rounding system, which basically is a major sign to mathematical doomsday, because it's just too depressing.

Moving On.

I don't know how the 'share market' system works, and my knowledge is as shallow as they come, but I noticed this. By the end of the first half of this year, Omantel's profits rose about 17% percent from it's profits this time last year, recording 49,000,000 Omani Rials (123 Million USD) of tax-free profit. Now, it's my understanding that if a company's profits rises, it's market share would rise proportionally, contradictory to the, what some people call, slow and disappointing drops in Omantel's market shares.

The facts are %100 correct, but I'm not certain of my explanation and I'd be more than happy to be corrected. I'm however certain that it's not entirely clean. Not with Omantel. There has to be a lie somewhere.

A lie just like the lie they made up about allocating 7,000,000 Omani Rials (Approx. 18 Million USD) to "improve it's customer services". Yes, lie, because that price would only be credible if you tell me that those 7 mil were used to purchase new CDs to play while you hold on on their internet hotline. It's 1313. Call, and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

The question now is, What will the introduction of a new Internet Service Provider bring to the table ? Are the TRA playing Omantel favors by keeping their rules mellow and their standards low ? Do you ever think that Omantel at some point, whether competed with or not, will want to change it's policies ?

You tell me, and keep alert, soon we do Oman Mobile.