DAMMAM, Jan 13(Arab News): Abdul Rahman Al-Jaafari, governor of the Telecommunications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), announced on Wednesday his organization’s plan to introduce high-quality broadband services with government support.

“We’ll present this proposal to the higher authorities for approval,” Al-Jaafari said, while speaking to businessmen and media people at Asharqiya Chamber. He said the project would be included within the development plan from 2013 to 2015.

Under the project, telecom companies will be asked to provide broadband services with a minimum speed of one megabyte to 95 percent of Internet users in the country, the governor said.

He also said the CITC has fined telecom companies SR90 million for selling unidentifiable SIM cards. “We have taken measures to stop this illegal practice. We’ll close down shops selling such SIM cards with the support of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs.”

He said the CITC, which is the Kingdom’s telecom regulator, would also deal with hacker messages firmly. “We canceled the licenses of four companies that sent such messages last year, in addition to imposing other punishments,” he added.

The CITC has issued 313 licenses during the past years to provide 17 different telecom services. He estimated cell phone growth rate in the Kingdom at 168 percent and Internet spread at 41 percent. Subscription of household broadband services reached about 36 percent, he added.

“We are now in the process of conducting a study on developing the Kingdom’s telecom and information technology sector. We plan to depend more on local products than imports.”

He expected the Kingdom’s telecom sector to make tremendous progress as a result of an expansion in the digital economy. “There is large-scale data movement and experts believe the Internet network in the Middle East would reach 22 million by 2014, with an annual growth of 13 percent,” he said.

Al-Jaafari said there is direct relation between an increase in income and increase in demand for telecom and Internet services. “Our goal is to open up the Kingdom’s telecom market to improve the quality of services, because a free market would enhance competition between service providers and attract more investment.”

However, he said the CITC would play an important role in regulating this competition between companies in order to protect the rights of consumers by monitoring prices and ensuring quality of services. The commission would not intervene in companies’ activities, except for improving quality and expanding services.

“Telecoms is one of the largest growing economic sectors in the Kingdom, registering a growth rate of over 19 percent, while the country’s overall growth rate reached 3.6 percent. As prices in other sectors shoot up, telecom prices are going down,” he said.