Increasing adoption of Broadband Internet in the Arab World is set to boost convergence-based services

By end of 2007, fixed line broadband penetration as a percent of total population ranged from 8% in Qatar to a mere 0.02% in Sudan in the Arab World. Qatar, UAE and Bahrain lead with 8%, 7.8% and 7% respectively.

They are followed by Saudi Arabia (2.4%), Jordan (1.6%), Palestine (1.5%), Morocco (1.5%), Tunisia (1.1%), Lebanon (1%), Algeria (0.9%), Oman (0.7%), Egypt (0.6%), Mauritania (around 0.1%), Yemen (0.05%), Syria (0.04%) and Sudan (0.02%).

'While absolute broadband penetration in the Arab World may seem low by industrial countries standards, the effective household broadband penetration is much higher. This is related to higher number of people per household as well as line sharing. For example, a new Arab Advisors survey in Egypt revealed that 63.4% of Egyptian households that use the ADSL service, share their ADSL connection with neighbors. A massive 81.9% of households that use shared ADSL lines share them with more than three neighboring households.' Jawad J. Abbassi, Founder and General Manager of Arab Advisors Group noted.

'Based on the survey results, the average number of households sharing one ADSL connection is 2.98. Multiplying the reported number of lines by this figure yields an estimate for households with ADSL connections in Egypt of 956,000 households by end of 2007, much higher than the number of accounts. While ADSL sharing is illegal in many countries and does negatively affect quality, the Arab Advisors Group believes that the practice is widespread in the Arab World. The silver lining is that more households are connected to broadband Internet services which would positively affect adoption of Internet-based services such as e-commerce, multimedia, user generated content and e-government services.' Mr. Abbassi added.

The Arab World's Telecom and broadcast media boom will re-define the traditional boundaries that separated media and telecom companies and enable convergent services as operators chase revenues in non-traditional areas.

Speakers and delegates at Arab Advisors' Media and Telecommunications Convergence Conference 2008 will deliberate threats and opportunities inherent in this landscape change.

The Zain Group is the Main Sponsor of the Arab Advisors' Fifth Annual Media and Telecommunications Convergence Conference 2008.

Zain (formerly known as MTC) is the pioneer of mobile telecommunications in the Middle East and now a major player on the African continent.

Today, the Zain Group is a leading wireless services provider and the 4th largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of geographic presence with a footprint in 7 Middle Eastern and 14 sub-Saharan countries, providing mobile voice and data services to over 45.7 million active individual and business customers.

The company's mobile telecommunications operations in Ghana will begin later in 2008.

The annual conference also received the support and sponsorship from Jawwal (Palestine), ESKADENIA Software (Jordan), GLOBITEL (Jordan), QUALCOMM, SIGNAL Communications - PRIMUSTEL (Jordan), Ericsson, Orange (Jordan), Greenpacket Networks (Bahrain) and Optimiza.

38 visionary executives and industry leaders will address the conference.

Close to 400 delegates from 86 different companies already confirmed their attendance.

As part of its vision to advance the knowledge and technology industries in the Arab World, the Arab Advisors Group has waived the delegate fees for telecom and broadcast operators.

As for paying delegates, they receive their choice of Arab Advisors Group reports for the same value of the registration fees.

The Fifth Annual Media and Telecommunications Convergence Conference 2008 will take place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman on June 2&3 2008 with the backing of 10 global and regional operators and companies. Furthermore, 16 global and regional companies will also be exhibiting at the conference.