Have you got Awasr Fibre yet?

Did you see the adverts on facebook at the end of January for Awasr fibre optic internet? Unlimited 20mb fibre for RO 29 was their advert, and it caught my eyes quite quickly. Alas, it wasn't yet available in my area (Glorious Ghbura), but their website has a pretty good network location map, so if you live in Al Khod, Maabilah, Al Hail, Al Mawaleh or Shatti al Qurum, then you can already get it.

There are three speed packages, 20Mbps for RO 29/month, 50Mbps for RO 50/month and 150Mbps for RO 70/month. The 50Mbps and 150Mbps packages come with a complimentary free wifi router, and it should be noted that all three tiers of the packages are based on a 12 month commitment to the service.

A good friend of mine ordered the service in Al Mawaleh and here is his experience:

He ordered the 50Mbps service and was contacted shortly after making his order request and told that it might take up to 4 weeks to complete his installation. They had to survey the property, then they had to lay the fibre and bring it into his house, then they had to make the connection live.

Remarkably, this actually took 2 weeks, and even more remarkably, he'd receive calls from people who spoke clear English and actually arrived when they said they would.

This is the Fibre box...

And as for the speed? Well he ordered the 50Mbps service and he got a speed of 60Mbps down and 12.3Mbps up... for RO 50 a month (RO 600 a year) I think that is incredible. I asked him what he thinks about the service and he says sure downloading is really good now, but the biggest change for him has been web browsing - it's now basically instantaneous

I've also reached out to someone at Awasr and asked them a few questions:

Q: Is this service going to be available to apartments, or just villas?

A: Our Ultra-high Speed Broadband services are available for all types of household within the coverage area, so for fiber ready apartments or villas. We currently cover 5 locations in Muscat and they are Mabelah, Mawalih, Khod, Al Hail and Shatti Al Qurum.

Q: Approximately how long does it take from ordering the service to receiving it, working?

A: Our current online process starts from the customer identifying their tagged premises online through www.awasr.om/network.html, the customer service team will call back the customer to verify the registration and acquire more details (house number and way number) then from there the process should be less than 2 months until the customer is fully connected. That depends on various factors such as location, previous orders and other factors but rest assure that we are always pushing to deliver the service as soon as possible to customers.

Q: Does Awasr provide the modem, or is this something the customer has to provide, and if so. how much is it?

A: We currently have 3 Home packages and 3 Business packages www.awasr.om, the unlimited ultra-high speed home packages starts from 20 mbps, 50 mbps and 150 mbps all our packages are unlimited. For the 50 mbps the and 150 mbps the modem and installation are free of charge. For the 20 mbps, the modem can be purchased by the customer either from Awasr or from the market. The customer will also need to pay the installation fee of 10 OMR for the 20 mbps package.

Q: Can you project with any accuracy when services will be available in Ghubra and Azaiba (being where a lot of expats live)

A: Al Athaibah and Al Ghoubrah are currently going construction as we speak, as a highly populated area it will take time to finalize the fiber layout and test the services but we expect this to be ready before the end of this year.


Well, there you have it. Personally - I can't wait for Awasr's services to be available down in Glorious Ghubra! If you're in one of the already connected areas... you might want to check this out!

le fin.