AMMAN - The growing availability of high-speed Internet in Jordan is likely to boost the country's competitiveness in attracting investments in the still untapped call centres sector, according to IT industry experts.
The rising number of users of high-speed Internet connectivity, which reaches 21 Megabits per second (Mbps) in Jordan, is also expected to lead to an increase in the volume of user-generated content in the Kingdom, where Internet services were first launched in 1994, they said.
"International companies look for stability, advanced infrastructure and connectivity, and with the launch of broadband Internet services, the Kingdom has both and is in a much better position to compete and attract investments, especially in call centres," Marwan Juma, former minister of information and communications technology, told The Jordan Times this week.
"Having high-speed upload and download services will encourage users to contribute to web content, something that will eventually boost Arabic content on the Internet," he added.
The experts noted that telecom companies in Jordan, where Internet penetration reached 38 per cent by the end of 2010, have Internet connections through several routes, which can function as backups.
"Broadband is now an essential pre-requisite to attract any kind of investments... it is like electricity," Jawad Abbasi, founder and chairman of Arab Advisers Group, told The Jordan Times over the phone from Dubai.
Stressing that broadband is a platform to increase content, he said high-speed Internet enables outsourcing and similar services industries in the Kingdom.
Zain Jordan, which in March launched broadband services using the High Speed Packet Access Plus (HSPA+) technology that provides Internet connectivity of up to 21Mbps, said the number of users is growing.
Khaled Nuseibeh, director of data services, told The Jordan Times that the company has attracted about 100,000 users of the new service, including mobile data and broadband.
Nuseibeh said Zain Jordan expects the number of users to reach 200,000 by the end of this year.
"With the launch of HSPA+, the number ofInternet users and Internet access through computers and mobiles increased significantly. The HSPA+ service has an effect because of its speed; higher speeds reflect on Internet experience," he noted.
In recent remarks to The Jordan Times, Jordan Telecom Group (JTG) CEO Nayla Khawam said high speed Internet will boost Jordan's infrastructure and thus enhance its ability to further attract investments in the sector.
JTG, which announced the start of the provision of double-digit broadband speeds (between 20Mbps and 21Mbps) across its networks in February, indicated that its Internet subscribers reached 300,000 by the end of 2010.
The company expects this figure to grow to 500,000 by the end of 2011 after the provision of high-speed Internet services.
© Jordan Times 2011
