RIYADH: Mobily’s HSPA-based broadband subscriber base has grown quickly over the past 18-months, signing up 300,000 subscribers, according to a statement issued by the company yesterday.

On May 19, 2007, Mobily launched the region’s only unlimited mobile broadband bundle at an affordable monthly charge of SR350 ($93), along with another two high-usage bundles, the 5GB and 1GB bundle for SR200 and SR100, respectively. And as indicators of the popularity of the service and pent up demand, Mobily signed up 50,000 users in the first few months.

“When we looked at 3G and more important 3.5G, we knew that we could shift the goal post,” said Khalid Al-Kaf, CEO and managing director of Mobily. “We wanted to shift the mobile data consumption conversation in the minds of consumers away from kilobytes to gigabytes,” he adds, “and thanks God we have.” For the Kingdom’s consumers, this was a turning point not in so much for what they paid for broadband connectivity, but how long they stood in line for the service. “What we created was two things: Broadband in your pocket with our USB devices, and more important, we took the queuing out of the initial setup and delivery of the service,” explains Al-Kaf.

In an e-mailed statement, Informa Telecoms & Media, the UK-based industry research house said they expected Mobily’s model to be replicated across the region. “Deregulation in the region has concentrated on mobile, rather than fixed networks. The resulting speed of roll out and rate of growth of HSPA have undoubtedly benefited from the intensity of competition, which has enabled HSPA to overtake fixed line technologies such as ADSL in a matter of months,” said Matthew Reed, senior analyst, Middle East and Africa, at Informa Telecoms & Media. “We would expect Mobily’s experience in Saudi Arabia to be replicated across the region,” he added. According to Informa’s Reed, Mobile broadband using HSPA (high Speed packet access) technology is already the biggest platform for broadband connectivity in the Middle East in terms of subscription numbers.

Forecasts by Informa show that HSPA will extend its leadership among broadband technologies in the coming years. At end-2008 there will be 6.34 million HSPA subscriptions in the Middle East, almost double the number of fixed-line broadband subscriptions in the region.

By end-2013, there will be 44.13 million HSPA subscriptions in the Middle East, compared to 12.77 million fixed-line broadband subscriptions, according to forecasts by Informa.

Meanwhile, in the Kingdom, as another indicator of pent-up demand for broadband services, Mobily carries around 18.5 terabytes daily on its network, up 250% since the start of the year, prompting the GSM Association to say Mobily has the busiest mobile data network on the face of the planet.