Wireless broadband to reach 240m subscribers

Dubai: Wireless broadband subscriber numbers have reached 200 million in Arab countries, and expectations are the number will reach 240 million by the end of 2009, a top industry official told Gulf News.

3G and GSM represents 88 per cent of the worldwide wireless market, said Abdul Aziz Ebrahim Fakhroo, divisional manager, wireless networks at Qtel and chairman of GSM Arab World, the regional representative body of the wireless industry representing mobile operators in 22 Arab countries.

Potential

"Although the telecom industry has not seen much difference because of the economic crisis, investments have slowed down slightly," Fakhroo said, "The mobile industry is growing in any country, so there won't be major turmoil in that aspect."

Cautioning operators, he said that they need to be wise in using the spectrum so they can reduce capital expenditure as much as possible.

Meanwhile, safety lies in the widely used standard. With 3G and GSM at nearly 88 per cent of the worldwide wireless market, the risk is much lower.

"Some countries will undergo standardisation solutions in technology and services to secure their investments," and move towards 3G and GSM, he said.

While the Gulf has extensive coverage of wireless broadband, he said that there is much potential in the data sector.

"Europe and Asia are going down that path, and we are headed in that direction."

In the Arab countries, including 12 from Asia and 10 from Africa, wireless had 200 million subscribers in the third quarter of this year, which is close to 55 per cent of the population.

"We are expecting this to go to 240 million subscribers by the end of next year, which will be around 70 per cent of the population," he said.

The challenge for the industry lies in taking the next step, from 3G to Long Term Evolution (LTE), the technology that would bring the same speed of fixed broadband to mobile broadband, according to Fakhroo.

The technology will combine data with multimedia and voice.