Omantel rakes in over OMR284,000 in number auction

MUSCAT: Omantel raised OMR284,500 for 10 diamond and gold phone numbers at the end of bidding at 10am on Saturday. The number 71111111 was sold for the highest price of OMR196,000.

Omantel had organised the auction in cooperation with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). It was revealed that the proceeds from the auction will go to charitable societies in Oman.

“This was done so the money generated could help support social initiatives, besides various institutions and civil society, which contribute to the overall development of the Sultanate,” Eng. Ahmed bin Saeed Al Riyami, General Manager of Omantel, said.

Commenting on the bidding process, Al Riyami said: “We congratulate TRA for the successful collaboration, which was the first bidding process of its kind in the Sultanate. Moreover, the rich experience we obtained from this bid, right from the registration process and throughout the auction, is noteworthy as well.”

Omantel completed the preparations for the registration process early and efficiently by assigning a page on the company’s website. As many as 222 participants registered for the auction.

Al Riyami said: “The registration process immediately followed the 48-hour bidding process, which started at 10am on Thursday (February 8) and ended at 10am on Saturday (February 10). The last hours of the auction witnessed strong competition, with very high bids to acquire the special numbers.”

Badr Al Nozwani, Omantel’s Senior Manager of organisational strategies and operations, said: “We thank the company team that handled the bid-making and TRA for the great efforts they made. This included the initial preparations to start the bidding process and monitoring matters when the bids were being made.”

“The Omantel team met to follow up on the process of registration and bidding first hand, and we thank all the participants involved in the auction,” he added.

Earlier, Mohammed Al Kindi, Executive Manager of the Regulatory and Compliance Unit, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), had said: “The auction shall be awarded to the highest bidder and in all cases, the TRA may increase the starting bid amount, according to the circumstances of each auction.”