Number of Internet users rises to 6.2 million — TRC

AMMAN — The number of Jordanians accessing the Internet via third and fourth generation technologies is consistently on the rise, figures by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) showed on Saturday.

By the end of June this year, the number of Internet users in Jordan reached 6.2 million, compared to 5.7 million at the same time last year, according to the TRC

Similarly on the rise, the number of Internet subscribers in the Kingdom reached 2.029 million at the end of June, compared with 1.7 million at the end of 2014.

The commission’s figures indicate that the number of mobile broadband subscribers, which is provided by third and fourth generation technologies, reached 1.7 million of total subscribers, rising from 1.4 million mobile subscribers at the end of 2014.

Of the total number of subscribers, the number of ADSL users reached 223,435 at the end of June, compared to 213,398 at the end of 2014. WiMax subscribers reached 114,133 at the end of the first half of this year, compared to 125,481 at the end of last year.

Fourth generation services are currently provided by Zain Jordan and Orange Jordan. They will soon be provided by Umniah as well.

In terms of mobile users in Jordan, TRC figures showed that mobile penetration reached 152 per cent at the end of June, with some 12.3 million active mobile subscriptions compared to 147 per cent at the end of last year, when total mobile subscriptions reached 11.1 million.

Recent figures by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology indicated that about 70 per cent of mobiles used in Jordan are smartphones.

Conversely, figures showed that the use of landlines in the country is declining, with subscriptions dropping to 375,601 at the end of June, at a penetration rate of 4.6 per cent compared to 5 per cent at the end of 2014.