Muscat: The Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA), issued a decision asking Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel), to pay OMR five million.

It was due cases of violation related to the interruption of communication services for the beneficiaries of the company on November 17, 2014 for more than nine hours. TR explained that it conducted regulatory steps under the terms of reference set out in the telecommunications regulation law and it’s implementing regulations and licenses issued to company.

The TRA has found that the company (Omantel) breached its obligations related to taking the steps necessary to ensure the continued provision of services to beneficiaries.

The company also breached its obligations related to the requirements of repairing the disruption and the disruption of communications services, where the outage lasted for more than nine hours.

Moreover, the company has breached its obligations related to achieving quality of service requirements set forth in telecommunications services license, and public landline telecommunications services.

Omantel said via its website in the Muscat Capital Market, clarified its stance that Omantel notified TRA imposing such fine is in dispute.

According to the article 51 of the TRA law, the dispute will be referred to arbitration. The company added that if the decision of imposing the fine becomes final from the arbitration jury, it will not have direct financial effect for the company.

Omantel had a technical fault occurred on the network on 17 November last year and caused the interruption of telecommunications services in fixed and mobile phones.

It also affected local banks resulted in substantial financial losses that exceed more than OMR one million.it also caused discontinuity wave of resentment among nationals via social media means. The company apologised for a technical failure as soon as the network back to normal status.

Omantel is the biggest telecommunication service provider in Oman, its net profit increased to OMR 95.9 million for the first nine months in 2014.