digital Oman - part 1

Of late, Oman has been pushing up the momentum to become a digital society in the sense that all services are done electronically without the need to move away from the luxury of your laptop/PC. And although it may seem that everything is going according to plan, there are a number of things that - in my opinion - are obstructing the process.

OmanTel, the dominating telecommunications provider in the Sultanate, is one of the obstacles because of the ill-planned out telecommunications infrastructure in many terms, through bad communication lines, worse customer service, and lack of a competitive advantage on a global scale. Almost every single new service that OmanTel has rolled out has always suffered badly such as the GSM, GPRS and Internet services. How efficient it is in terms of speed because of badly mapped out plans in those fields. In terms of customer service, they lack the friendliness that is available from it's counterpart Nawras, since because when you show your customer they would give back the appreciation that you look forward to as a company that offers services and in terms of services they are lacking to move up to competition that offers the latest technologies while Oman still lives in the stone age.

And as company that unfortunately dominates the telecommunications market, not because they offer the best products and services but because they are of a monopolistic nature since they are the only Internet and fixed lines provider in the Sultanate of Oman; this lessens the chances of Oman ever moving forward into the digital era.

Other reason is consumer spending because of low income values against buying their own personal laptops or desktops for personal or business use. This has a great effect on the integration of the 'digital Oman' project into the community so that people may better understand how to cope with the technological switch.

Unfortunately, there's not much that can be done unless there is a direct intervention from private organizations by providing the latest consumer technologies in Oman at more affordable prices - a decision that cannot be taken unless there is a direct decision from the companies headquarters in its homeland.

On the other hand, OmanTel must learn that to better earn customers of instead of the loss trend that is currently happening, it had better learn to treat customers more professionally, in a more friendlier manner and making the customer their their target to which will then draw profits in the end.

To be continued..

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Links:

- Oman Telecommunications Company (OmanTel)

- Oman Mobile Telecommunications Company (Oman Mobile)

- Omani Qatar Telecommunications Company (Nawras)

- Oman moves closer to 'digital society' dream