Omantel, the state owned telecommunication service provider of the Sultanate of Oman announces that speed of the broadband services to its subscribers have significantly increased, thanks to the data carrying capacity of fiber optic cables. Optical fiber cable networks help service providers to deliver high speed services without affecting the monthly charges thereby benefiting end users. Enhanced end user experience is the key behind the successful business of a broadband service provider. Almost 90 percent of Omantel broadband customers get advantage of increased speed.
High speed broadband opens up a new list of opportunities and life changing applications that most of the people might not have even thought about. Broadband, especially delivered over fiber optic networks is an accelerator, for inclusive and sustainable growth. It opens new paths of creativity and new means to share the knowledge. Broadband widens learning opportunities. Its power is a known fact and was visible during the recent freedom movements in some Middle East and African countries.
Omantel has been investing heavily in building new telecommunication infrastructures throughout Oman in a bid to provide modern communication services to its subscribers. Omantel had invested in fiber optic networks as well. The expansion and construction of fiber optic networks took the operator closer to its subscribers. Fiber optic networks carry huge amounts of data generated by broadband applications. Omantel constructed Fiber to the home networks and rolled out many Multiple Service Access Nodes. All these developments enabled the operator to upgrade its speed significantly. The current offer of enhanced speed covers more than 90 percent of Omantel customers. The operator upgrades the uploading speed to 1 Mbps.
Omantel broadband subscribers at the basic plan with a download speed of 2 Mbps can enjoy a double speed of 4 Mbps. For customers of 5 Mbps, the new change is just an additional 1 Mbps to make a download speed of 6 Mbps. 40 Mbps customers get a 1.5 times boost in the speed, which is up to 60 Mbps. The changes come without any additional burden to the subscribers and this is the point of attraction. If the operator increases the speed by charging more from its users it would not have been news for us. There are two interesting points in this news;
1. Fiber optic networks enabled a service provider to offer higher broadband services to its existing subscribers free of charge,
2. The attitude of service provider itself. Here is a provider, who shares the benefits with the customers, thus showing its social commitment.
Broadband must be a social commitment. High speed broadband is a catalyst in national development especially in developing countries. High speed broadband has the potential to transform and take human civilizations to the next stage of evolution. There are many key issues to be addressed in the deployment of broadband such as whether it is a pure business, or is it a social commitment. If we approach broadband as a business, we would end up in increasing the digital divide. Data says, around 95 percent of telecommunications infrastructures worldwide are funded by private sectors. Then the difficult task would be to find the “Social commitment” element when we make business.