Wireless KSA

David George-Cosh, The National, Saudi Arabia to become Gulf’s first wireless society, 2 Mar 2010 "Saudi Arabia is on track to become the first wireless society in the Gulf, with more residents expected to sign up to broadband internet on their mobile devices than on personal computers in the next year, analysts say."

ME Telecoms

BI-ME, Telecom in the Middle East: the competitive mandate after the downturn, 1 Mar 2010 "Broadband demand is exploding globally, in terms of both subscriber uptake and bandwidth requirements. For Middle East operators, the broadband growth story is compelling.

"Broadband subscriptions in the Middle East region were expected, by the end of 2009, to grow by about 44% over the previous year, although penetration remains low, at 2.4% of the region’s population."

Gulf broadband report

itp.net, Broadband service in the Gulf inadequate says report, 2 Oct 09

"Gulf countries do not have a high enough quality of broadband service to be able to meet the demands of today's applications, according to a new study.

"The study, which was carried out by Oxford University's Saïd Business School and the University of Oviedo, found that quality of service was not adequate to manage modern applications for business and consumers alike, and that Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are a long way from being able to handle applications developed in the next three to five years."

The link in the article to the report is broken - watch this space, I've requested more info on this.

Also see:

Broadband in MENA

StartUpArabia, MENA Broadband Subscribers To Reach 27 Million By 2014, 24 Sep 09 "According to Informa Telecoms & Media’s new Middle East & North Africa Broadband report, the MENA region will continue to experience some of the world’s highest growth rates in broadband subscriber numbers."

Report link: Informa, Middle East and North Africa: Broadband Market Analysis and Forecasts,
Key Market Analysis, Strategic Outlook & Forecasts to 2013

It's a commercial report, and expensive, so I haven't been able to look at this in detail. This makes Mohamed Marwen Meddah's summary (linked above) particularly useful.

Saudi-Cisco

Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia Suffers Lack of Working Women as Oil Fluctuates, 2 Jun 09, "Some foreign companies are hoping to profit from building contracts in the cities. Cisco Systems Inc. is designing the technological infrastructure -- everything from broadband Internet connections to video surveillance systems to traffic control -- for all four of them.

"Cisco will invest $250 million in Saudi Arabia during the next five years, says Wim Elfrink, Cisco’s chief globalization officer. Al-Dabbagh, the minister in charge of the cities, has asked Cisco to provide the world’s fastest broadband Internet connections."

SMS

Vanguard/allafrica.com, Africa: SMS to Drive Continent, Middle East Mobile Data Uptake, 23 Mar 09 "In Africa and the Middle East, SMS revenue is expected to almost double to nearly $12 billion in 2013, far exceeding the revenues of higher-end data services such as MMS or mobile broadband. The report stated that "the significance of this development goes beyond the revenue opportunity coming directly from peer-to-peer SMS. Several operators have found ways to capitalize on subscribers' new familiarity with SMS to increase not only their data ARPS, but their voice ARPS, too."