Number of Internet subscribers growing rapidly in Arab world

The number of Internet subscribers in the Arab world has rapidly increased last year, as some 368,280 new users subscribed to the network last year, while the available international Internet bandwidth grew at a faster rate of 155 per cent to add 1.205 gbps in available bandwidth for the eight Arab states - Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the UAE.

According to a report released by the Arab Advisers Group (AAG), the eight Arab markets had a total of more than 1.1 million Internet subscribers by the end of last year.

These subscribers surfed the Internet utilising a total combined international Internet bandwidth of 1.9 gbps, which is, naturally, unevenly distributed amongst the eight countries.

Calculating the January 2002 regional Internet bandwidth index and comparing it to the same index results of August 2001, the report showed that there has been a significant increase in the available international Internet bandwidth in the Arab countries.

Oman leads with a 2.940 index score, followed by Morocco (1.970), Egypt (1.735), UAE (1.381), Saudi Arabia (0.612), Jordan (0.559), Syria (0.224) and Lebanon (0.210).

In August 2001, Morocco led the Arab Advisers Group's Internet Regional Bandwidth Index rankings with a score of 3.701, followed by Egypt (2.116), Jordan (1.497), Oman (1.381), UAE (0.738), Saudi Arabia (0.59), Lebanon (0.429) and Syria (0.19).

This increase in the total available bandwidth to the total subscribers is a change for the better, especially in the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt where the per cent growth in bandwidth was at least more than double the growth rate of subscribersî in these countries.

Regional Bandwidth Index was calculated for the eight markets and is obtained by dividing a country's bandwidth share by its accounts share.

Results of more than one indicate a better than regional average bandwidth per subscriber. The higher the result, the better the bandwidth availability per account.