The United Arab Emirates tops the Middle East in telecom connectivity, revealed a data compiled by analyst firm Arab Advisors Group.

The analyst firm issued data of the annual Total Country Connectivity Measure (TCCM), where it has combined the fixed-line penetration, cellular penetration, and Internet user penetration rates (the number of subscribers per 100 people) of 19 countries to come up with a ranking that represented the extent of its communications connectivity at the end of 2007.

The UAE topped with a score of 329.5 percent, up from 261.4 percent in 2006. The country boasts of a mobile penetration rate of 171.2 percent, which helped boost its score.

According to the UAE''s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, the seven emirates had 7.6 million mobile subscribers at the end of 2007, 1.38 million fixed-line subscribers, and 904,000 Internet subscriptions, 42 percent of which were broadband. The population is estimated to be around 4.5 million.

UAE is then followed by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, thus rounding up the top five. The same group represented the top five countries in 2006, but with a little bit of shake up in the rank order.

With these countries, pumping in billion of dollars in expanding their telecom infrastructure, it comes as a little surprise that the six oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries along with Oman, which is ranked at seventh, dominates the connectivity in the region.