Amer al Rawas, CEO of Omantel
Omantel’s CEO Dr. Amer al Rawas said that the climax of their 500 million Omani riyal investment (1.3 billion USD) is the latest telecommunication service, 4G LTE.
For now the 4G service will only be available at SQU and certain places in Muscat, Buraimi and Khasab only, at least of the time being. Al Rawas explained that Omantel did studies which showed that there was high demand for 3.5G services in just those places.
Admitting that there are some problems which operators may face with compatible frequencies, al Rawas said “The government has announced allocation of 15 million riyals to resolve the frequency problems.”
“We have set up 50 stations for the 4G services and plan to increase to 200 stations in future,” the CEO said.
The company first tried the 4G network at SQU.
“The traffic at SQU is high for 3.5G as students use it for gaming as well as for their study use,” al Rawas said. He added that the trial was highly successful at SQU and it will most likely lead to the establishment of five “hot-spots” at SQU for the 4G service.