The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced a joint initiative to provide telecommunications services to more than 150 villages located in remote and rural areas in the Sultanate.

The implementation of this national project will start during the third quarter of this year and expected to be completed by the end of 2013. The joint initiative is implemented in cooperation with the Telecom operators.

Omantel and Nawras, which comes as a response to the requests from citizens to provide telecommunications services to villages of rural and remote areas that are inhabited by a small number of people and  currently lacking of such services. The TRA has paid great attention to the requests of citizens from different governorates and regions of the Sultanate, and accordingly field surveys were conducted for these areas to determine their exact needs of telecommunications services and to estimate the population and assess the nature of the terrain and the possibility of connecting these areas to the nearest telecommunications network.