Nawras presents at International Broadband Wireless Access Conference in Europe

Andreas Birnik, Head of Strategy & Alliances at Nawras, presented on the topic of “Evaluating the opportunity for early broadband wireless access investments in emerging markets” at an industry conference in Vienna, Austria on June 14, 2005.

The presentation started with a regional snapshot of the development of mobile communications in the Middle East region. Mr. Birnik concluded that the past year in Middle Eastern mobile communications had been very dynamic and that the telecommunication landscape was changing in the whole region with deregulation and the issuing of new mobile licenses. With high per capita incomes, a young and growing population and attractive Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) levels, the importance of the region is definitely growing fast. Oman is very much a representative country of this trend with a rapidly growing mobile market and recent deregulation which paved the way for Nawras successful market entry on March 16, 2005.

In a short period of time, Nawras has revolutionized the mobile customer experience in Oman with its focus on “Best Service, Best Quality and Best Value”. By listening to its customers and leading the way in customer experience innovation, Nawras reached a 5% market share already in five weeks and now has over 60,000 customers.

Following the general overview of the Middle East market and Nawras launch, Mr. Birnik continued by presenting developments in broadband wireless technologies in the region. The overall conclusion was that WiFi is the predominant technology to date but that broadband wireless access technologies have not yet made any significant impact on the regional telecommunications scene. Recently few regional mobile operators have launched next generation mobile networks with the support of 3G and EDGE allowing higher bandwidth. In Oman the Nawras network has full support for EDGE as the only provider in the Sultanate.

Mr. Birnik argued the importance of business models that allowed mobile operators to give fixed internet operators a “run for the money” regarding broadband access for both residential and business customers. Ideal models would allow mobile operators to utilize existing mobile and backbone infrastructure while making gradual investment commitments.

Anders Blauenfeldt, Director of Business Development at Nawras, comments on the topic “Attractive customer propositions in the area of mobile broadband are in emerging markets likely to be based around providing basic broadband internet services in a customer friendly and reliable way. This is in contrast to developed markets where mobility and bandwidth of the offerings are often emphasized. Mr. Blauenfeldt continues “The customer experience offered by emerging market incumbent fixed-net operators for competing services, such as ADSL, often leaves a lot to be desired. Further, ADSL services are unavailable in many geographical areas in emerging markets. In this regard, new broadband wireless access technologies could substitute for internet access in the same way as mobile communications has overtaken fixed telephony in emerging markets“.

The presentation by Mr. Birnik concluded that new broadband wireless technologies could also provide the potential for emerging market mobile pure play operators to offer total solutions to customer needs by providing integrated voice and data services offers. Attractive customer propositions are initially likely to be low mobility solutions at competitive prices. In this regard, broadband wireless access technologies could substantially increase the proportion of the population that has access to high speed internet services in emerging markets.

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