Oman coverage

What the Oman numbers mean

Two numbers matter and only one of them is the one every seller quotes. The typical speed, 64 Mbps, tells you what a good moment looks like.

The tenth percentile, 17 Mbps, is the one that matters. It is the speed in the worst tenth of the day, when the cell above the station is full and everybody around you is on it too. A country with a high median and a low floor is a country that works beautifully right up until the moment you actually need it.

If the trip depends on video calls or tethering, plan around the busy figure rather than the typical one.

What happens in Oman when the network is busy

Congestion is not a fault, it is a Tuesday evening. The question is what your eSIM can do about it, and for most travel eSIMs the answer is nothing: one wholesale agreement per country, one network, and no way out except buying a second eSIM from somebody else while standing in the street.

Here, Orbislo traffic runs over Omantel and Ooredoo. When the network you are on degrades we move you to another one, mid trip, without you asking, and tell you afterwards rather than interrupting you at the time.

Mobile operators in Oman

• Licence structure: In 2010 the regulator's Class I mobile licensees were Oman Mobile and Nawras, with Friendi, Renna, Mazoon, Injaz and Samatel holding Class II licences to resell service on their networks.
• Vodafone Oman: Vodafone became Oman's third mobile operator with a first class licence granted by Royal Decree 4/2021. The company is owned by Omani institutions, including pension and investment funds, and Vodafone Group holds no share of its capital.
• Vodafone Oman: Vodafone Oman opened for customers in the last days of 2021, selling through 3,500 authorised distributors with a launch offer that ran until 31 January 2022.
• Market: At the end of June 2026 Oman had 8,324,406 mobile subscriptions: 5,305,401 active prepaid, 1,313,837 postpaid and 1,705,168 machine to machine lines. Prepaid fell 2.1 percent in a year while postpaid rose 6.2 percent.

Older networks in Oman

• Oman closed its 3G networks region by region: 700 stations in Al Buraimi, Al Dhahirah and Musandam in July 2024, then Al Dakhiliyah, Al Wusta and Dhofar, then the Batinah and Sharqiyah governorates in January 2025.
• Muscat's 1,699 stations went dark by mid 2025, apart from a few near Muscat International Airport kept for technical reasons. More than 5,600 stations were affected nationwide, and the freed spectrum now carries 4G, 5G and IoT.

5G in Oman

• On 16 October 2019 the regulator granted Omantel and Ooredoo the right to use 100 MHz of 5G spectrum, with a target of 4,400 5G stations within five years and a one year waiver of annual spectrum fees.
• Omantel launched 5G in December 2019 in the 3.4 to 3.6 GHz band. Both standalone and non-standalone 5G are being deployed in Oman, and Vodafone Oman tested standalone 5G voice and data with Ericsson in January 2023.
• Frequencies are not auctioned in a public tender. Only a Class I licensee can hold spectrum, and each licence carries an obligation to build a set number of sites every year and to provide universal service.
• With the 3G shutdown complete, the regulator put 4G coverage at 99 percent and 5G coverage at 90 percent.

Network notes for Oman

• Operators do not share 5G networks as a rule, but national roaming between them is switched on in universal service areas and during national emergencies, under service agreements and regulatory approval.
• When cables through the Bab al Mandab strait in the Red Sea were cut in September 2025, Omantel rerouted traffic over redundant routes and told the stock exchange its service was unaffected.
• International internet bandwidth reached 5.382 million Mbps by the end of June 2026, up 31.8 percent in a year.
• For road trips into the desert and mountains, British travel advice tells visitors to carry a mobile or satellite phone, travel in convoy where possible and leave a copy of their plans with someone.