AMMAN — Umniah, a subsidiary of Batelco Group, on Sunday launched Third Generation (3G) mobile telecom service in the Kingdom, covering the entire country.

"The company's 3.75G technology network called ‘evo’ provides Internet speeds of up to 42.2 megabits per second," Umniah CEO Ihab Hinnawi said in a press conference on Sunday.

In order to introduce the service, Hinnawi noted, Umniah invested more than JD100 million on licensing and network infrastructure."The provision of 3G services in Jordan will help significantly increase the number of Internet users in Jordan, which reached more than 50 per cent by the end of 2011," he said.

Umniah is the third mobile operator in the Kingdom to launch 3G technology, which enables new mobile services such as video calling, multimedia and high-speed Internet access.

Orange Jordan was the first to launch 3G in March 2010, while Zain Jordan followed suit in 2011.

Noting the demand for high-quality mobile and Internet content in Jordan, Hinnawi said Umniah had built partnerships with several content development companies to provide diverse content for its customers and encourage more Jordanians to go online.

Mobile operators in some countries such as the US have already introduced Fourth Generation (4G) service, but Hinnawi said it was "too early" to bring this technology, which offers data transfer rates of up to 150 megabits per second, to Jordan."Consumers in Jordan do not need this speed yet. Growth in the next five years will be mainly in 3G subscriptions," he explained.

The Umniah executive added that he expects subscriptions to grow as prices of 3G-enabled handsets are on decline.

"In less than one year, we will see handsets that support 3G services sold for less than $50," Hinnawi said.