A number of contractors are bidding for the contract to design and install overhead fiber cables on electricity poles in designated areas of the country.
State-owned Oman Broadband Company, which is implementing the National Broadband Strategy, said the objective of the ‘Fiber Over Electricity Poles’ project is to “utilise the existing electricity poles to lay Oman Broadband’s FOC (fiber optic cable) for providing broadband services by backhauling mobile sites.”
New poles may be installed where required and new trenches dug depending upon conditions at site, it noted.
As many as 37 mobile sites currently operated by the company will be covered through the ‘Fiber Over Electricity Poles’ project, utilising existing electricity poles and potentially constructing new ones in various governorates.
Trenching for a distance of around 360 kilometres will be required as well.
Oman Broadband — part of Oman ICT Group — has already been collaborating with utilities of Nama Group (formerly The Electricity Holding Company) to benefit from the massive electricity networks and associated optical fiber cables already installed by the latter, around 74,000 kilometres across the length and breadth of the Sultanate.
Utilisation of Nama Group’s fiber optic network will contribute towards avoiding double investments on similar projects as well as positively increase the pace of projects and achieves better financial returns and cost cutting, said Oman Broadband.
