2017 Middle East - Fixed Broadband Market

Fixed broadband deployment varied across the Middle East

The fixed broadband market in the Middle East is slowly beginning to gain traction in the more progressive markets. Overall however, regional penetration remains low. ADSL has been the most popular access method in many markets, but we are now seeing countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Turkey take significant strides in fibre-optic deployment and penetration.

Mobile services have reached saturation in some markets (Bahrain, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) and it has become clear that future telecoms growth will revolve around broadband services. This has led many of the various governments and operators towards a renewed push to improve both mobile and fixed broadband infrastructure.

Progressive growth of fibre-optic deployment has been identified in markets which have a National Broadband policy in place and a supportive government which is willing to invest in fixed infrastructure (e.g. United Arab Emirates and Qatar). In addition, countries where the operators are also willing to make infrastructure investments in co-operation with the government; seem to be progressing faster and in a more co-operative manner.

The use of broadband services in Saudi Arabia, for example, is being partly driven by an increasing number of high tech projects which are strongly supported by the government; along with the government’s own transition to digital technologies and e-government services.

• DSL subscriptions still account for the largest proportion of fixed broadband subscriptions in both Saudi Arabia and Syria.
• The FttP market is beginning to grow more rapidly in Bahrain.
• Iranian-net is currently deploying a fibre network in Iran.
• The fixed broadband market is still considered to be in the emerging stages in Iraq.
• There is an increasing availability of fibre networks in Israel.
• A national broadband network is currently being built in Jordan.
• Fibre based broadband deployments are slowly growing in Kuwait with thousands of connections available.
• There is a renewed focus on developing fibre networks in Lebanon.
• A national broadband strategy is being implemented in Oman.
• Internet cafes are prolific in Qatar.
• Fixed broadband services based on fibre are growing quite quickly in both Turkey and the UAE.
• TeleYemen (YemenNet) continues to be the only provider of DSL services in Yemen.

This unique report provides a regional overview of the fixed broadband sector in the Middle East where many variances exist in the state of fixed broadband progress. The countries covered include Bahrain; Iran; Iraq; Israel; Jordan; Kuwait; Lebanon; Oman; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; Syria; Turkey; United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Included are key industry statistics; market analysis and fixed broadband subscriber data.