27% Fibre Jump, 82% Score: TRA's New Dhofar Network Report Card

In the space of three days, Oman's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) published two data-heavy reports on Dhofar Governorate and sent its chief executive on a field tour of the province, giving the clearest public picture yet of how the south's networks performed in 2025 and how the three mobile operators stack up against each other today.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Fibre-optic connections in Dhofar rose 27% year-on-year, from 72,695 in 2024 to 92,398 in 2025, according to a TRA report published on September 21, 2026.
• 5G stations in the governorate grew 10% to 719, now covering 93.66% of residential units in Dhofar.
• A separate TRA user-experience report issued September 22, 2026 put Omantel on top with an 82% overall quality score, ahead of Ooredoo (74%) and Vodafone (71%).
• All 149 public schools in Dhofar now have internet access, with 141 on ultra-high-speed broadband.
• TRA's CEO and the Governor of Dhofar toured Salalah, Taqah, Rakhyout and Al Mazyounah on September 23 to review projects built between 2022 and 2026 and flag remaining gaps.

📊 What the Growth Numbers Show

The first of the two reports, published by TRA on September 21, tracks how Dhofar's telecom infrastructure changed over the course of 2025. Total telecommunications stations in the governorate edged up from 1,082 to 1,089, a modest 1% rise, but the composition shifted meaningfully toward newer technology: 5G stations climbed from 651 to 719, a 68-station addition that now reaches nearly 94% of residential units in the province.

The bigger jump came in fixed broadband. Fibre-optic connections rose from 72,695 to 92,398 households and establishments, a 27% increase that outpaces the national fibre growth rate TRA reported for the same period; Oman's nationwide fibre and bandwidth figures released earlier this year showed similarly strong momentum, but Dhofar's governorate-level number suggests the south is catching up on connectivity that had historically lagged behind Muscat and the northern governorates.

TRA also reported that all 149 public schools in Dhofar are now connected to the internet, with 141 on ultra-high-speed broadband and the remaining eight relying on alternative technologies, likely satellite links given the terrain in more remote wilayats.

📶 Who Actually Performs Best: The Quality Scorecard

The second report, published a day later on September 22, is more unusual: it is a head-to-head comparison of Omantel, Ooredoo and Vodafone's actual network performance in Dhofar, based on measurements taken in June 2026. TRA said the goal is to "raise transparency levels and incentivize licensed operators to continue network development and improve user experience."

Omantel comes out ahead on nearly every measure TRA tracked, most notably download speed, where its 280 Mbps average is more than double Ooredoo's 124 Mbps and four times Vodafone's 70 Mbps. Vodafone's one bright spot is upload speed, where it edges out Ooredoo, and it stays competitive on messaging-app performance. The gap narrows considerably on instant messaging, where all three operators score within three points of each other, suggesting basic app performance has become table stakes while video and browsing experience remain the real differentiators.

This governorate-specific scorecard follows a related but distinct measurement TRA carried out during the Khareef Dhofar tourist season itself; local outlet Shabiba reported on September 17 that quality at specific tourist beaches, springs and event sites varied sharply, with some locations topping 80% for several carriers while others lagged in the "average" or "weak" bands, a reminder that governorate-wide averages can still mask patchy coverage at the exact spots visitors and residents rely on most.

🚗 The Field Visit: Turning Numbers Into a To-Do List

The data releases were followed almost immediately by a site visit. On September 23, TRA's chief executive engineer joined the Governor of Dhofar, local walis and representatives of the telecom operators on a tour that covered the wilayats of Salalah, Taqah, Rakhyout and Al Mazyounah, according to TRA's own account of the visit. The stated purpose was to review projects delivered in the governorate between 2022 and 2026, discuss upcoming development plans, and identify challenges still facing the sector.

TRA describes this as part of its "annual monitoring program" for telecom projects across Oman's governorates, the same mechanism that has previously informed infrastructure investment decisions elsewhere in the country. The pairing of hard data with an on-the-ground visit suggests the regulator is using this week's numbers as a working document rather than a one-off publicity release, a pattern similar to what played out in Musandam, where 5G tower counts nearly doubled in a year after sustained regulatory attention to that governorate's connectivity gaps.

🇴🇲 Why This Matters for Oman

Dhofar is Oman's second-most-populous governorate and its main tourism draw during the Khareef season, so the gap between Muscat-grade connectivity and what residents and visitors actually experience in Salalah, Taqah or Rakhyout has real economic weight. A 27% jump in fibre connections and 719 live 5G stations point to genuine capital investment landing in the south rather than staying concentrated in the capital. Publishing an operator-by-operator quality index, rather than just aggregate sector statistics, also gives Omani consumers and businesses in Dhofar something they rarely get: a regulator-verified basis for choosing a mobile provider instead of relying on marketing claims. Combined with the national push to expand digital infrastructure documented in projects like Oman's broader 2026 infrastructure build-out, this week's Dhofar disclosures suggest Vision 2040's goal of nationwide, not just Muscat-centric, digital coverage is starting to show up in the data.