Similar reports have been circulated recently regarding the competition witnessed between telecommunication companies in the Middle East. Through adopting free market values, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and UAE have succeeded in creating vital and highly competitive environments for telecommunication companies, thus encouraging entrance of new players. Competition is no longer confined to providing new technologies, since care offered to content and initiatives for providing news services and information is growing. Moreover, the area of entertainment, including music, video games, TV channels, etc. witnessed great developments. The initiatives for transmitting content through several distribution channels, such as TV, internet, mobile phone, etc, may also yield success. GITEX and GULFCOMMS 2007 are the Leading International Trade Events for IT and Telecommunications in the Middle East. The Gitex Technology Week is the essential showcase to meet business partners and to experience state-of-the art technologies. In GULFCOMMS 2007 organized in Dubai last September, the two telecommunications companies licensed in UAE (Du and Ittisalat) displayed a various new services. The services displayed by Du and the prompt answers from Ittislat have been highly interesting.
Many developments in the telecommunication sector indicate imminent qualitative changes to take place in the countries of the region, together with changes in the positions of the different countries within the classification list of readiness for internet and other networks. Such position changes will always be subject to swift changes, despite the great variations in speed, competence, and prices of providing internet and other telecommunication services in the different Arab countries. Some countries have been late in developing their infrastructure, but were lucky in opting for the latest and most powerful technologies such as using fibre optic cables in telephone lines instead of copper cables. A number of initiatives have emerged within such developments, including the huge projects executed by Saudi Arabia.
A recent report by EFG Hermes Bank has shown an imminent transformation towards broadband technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the coming few years, thanks to entrance of new players. The report expected a change to the new technology by 16% of the population of the Kingdom - which is estimated by 24 million - by 2010, instead of the current situation of only 1%, a matter which will enormously change the position of Saudi Arabia in the network readiness classification. In presence of 20 million mobile carriers, the use of internet through the mobile system will witness a giant leap that necessitates availability of many services, including the different content services.
At the same time, internet services to homes and companies are suffering many problems that necessitate improvements in the infrastructure. A report made by the Organization of Cooperative Economics and Development has shown great variations in prices and speeds in 30 countries covered by the study, out of which 20 countries have adopted the broadband technology.
According to the study, the countries using fibre optic cables enjoy faster and cheaper communication services. Japan surpassed most European countries and South Korea, which also uses the fibre optic technology with a speed of 100 mega byte per second. The technology enables data uploading and downloading with the same speed, contrary to the ADSL technology, which is not capable of providing uploading services with the same speed of downloading services. Turkey has been the most expensive with a rate of $81 for each mega byte per second, whereas the United States and Britain recorded a price of $3 for each mega byte per second. The study also showed an increase in the number of service providers adopting the +ADSL2 technology, an new technology to which the current lines can be upgraded for the purpose of enabling the ADSL system to increase the downloading speed by a rate of double the normal speed.
The contents available for mobile sets will also witness important transformations which are expected to upgrade the contents and boost the position of content providers, including TV stations, music producers, etc.
