Oman is the new January 2002 star while Syria and Lebanon slip farther behind

These subscribers surfed the Internet utilizing a total combined international Internet bandwidth of 1.9 Gbps, which is, naturally, unevenly distributed amongst the countries. The figures are based on extensive, continuous and reliable primary research from the Arab Advisors Group (www.arabadvisors.com).

A new report released today to Arab Advisors Group's Strategic Research Service Subscribers shows that total subscribers numbers in the eight markets increased by 348,000 (a 47% increase) between 2000 and 2001. Available International Internet bandwidth grew at a faster rate of 154% to add 1.195 Gbps in available bandwidth for the eight markets.

"This increase in total bandwidth to total subscribers is a change for the better, especially in the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt where the percent growth in bandwidth was at least more than double the growth rate of subscribers", wrote Shahin Shahin, Arab Advisors Group's analyst in the report.

The Arab Advisors Group has calculated the January 2002 "Regional Bandwidth Index" for the eight markets in the newly released report. The Regional bandwidth Index is calculated by dividing a country's bandwidth share by its accounts share. Results of more than 1 indicate a better than regional average bandwidth per subscriber. The higher the result, the better the bandwidth availability per account.

When comparing figures from the August 2001 Index with those of December of the same year, the Arab Advisors Group's analysts noted that Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Morocco index scores slipped, while the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia's scores improved.

In August 2001, Morocco led the Arab Advisors 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). The results for the January 2002 index show that Oman jumped to lead the pack with a 3.448 index score, followed by Morocco (1.944), Egypt (1.712), UAE (1.363), Saudi Arabia (0.604), Jordan (0.509), Lebanon (0.207) and Syria (0.110).

The Arab Advisors Group will continually update the index to track the overall situation in the region and the country's relative standings. The Arab Advisors Group also believes that despite the overall bandwidth crunch in the Arab World, the situation is indeed improving. However, as the research shows, the pace of improvement is faster in some countries than others!

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