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Jordan Telecommunications Report Q2 2008Product Type: Market Research ReportPublished by: Business Monitor International Published: April 2008 Product Code: R302-2806 Description Jordan’s telecoms market was completely liberalised at the beginning of 2005, ending the fixed-line basicservices monopoly of incumbent telco Jordan Telecom, in which France Telecom has a controllingstake. Although the sector is governed by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology(MoICT), day-to-day regulatory policy has been delegated to the Telecommunications RegulatoryCommission (TRC). Established in 1995, the TRC operates independently of the MoICT. As a fullyliberalised market, Jordan’s telecoms sector boasts the presence of a large number of service providersacross its various sectors, including four mobile operators. The sector also plays host to a number ofmajor strategic investors, including France Telecom, Batelco of Bahrain and Zain of Kuwait,By the end of 2006, there were 4.337mn mobile customers in Jordan, giving the country a mobilepenetration rate of 73.8%. Although the number of mobile customers continued to steadily increasethroughout much of 2007, the final quarter of 2007 saw a slump in the total number of internet customers. Mobile market leader Zain (formerly known as Fastlink) appears to have been mainly responsible forbreaking the growth pattern, with the operator reporting a total of 1.858mn ‘active’ mobile customers atthe end of 2007, down from 2.032mn in September 2007. Other than referring to the increasedcompetition in the Jordanian mobile market, Zain has not given any explanation for the sudden drop in itsactive subscriber total in Q407. However, Zain’s subscriber base has fluctuated before, and BMI suspectsthat this is related to the high proportion of prepaid customers within Zain’s overall subscriber base (86%of the total are prepaid). We believe that the number of ‘active’ Zain mobile customers fluctuates fromone quarter to the next, and we should not be surprised to see further future fluctuations. Despite the fall in the number of Zain mobile subscribers in Q407, mobile subscriber penetration at theend of 2007 was still 12.3% higher than at the start of the year; by the end of December 2007, mobilepenetration in Jordan is estimated to have surpassed 80%. Meanwhile, Jordan continues to have thesecond lowest fixed-line and broadband penetration rates in the Middle East. Although it appears that theresidential fixed-line sector (using mainly PSTN lines) has been slowly declining since the start of 2005,growth in the number of ISDN lines (used mostly by businesses) has helped to offset this. Although thenumber of ISDN lines continued to increase throughout 2007, the number of PSTN lines entered a periodof accelerated decline in the second quarter of 2007 and this has contributed to the downward trend in thetotal number of fixed-lines since then. Meanwhile, the low level of broadband penetration is related to thehigh cost of bandwidth, and the relative lateness with which broadband access services were introduced. Jordan sits in the lower half of our latest set of Business Environment Rankings for the Middle East,ahead of Turkey and Iran but behind Israel and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Thecountry also benefits from having one of the highest scores in the region for regulatory independence, astatus which it shares with Israel and Bahrain. Table of Contents
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