Another first for MTC-Vodafone Bahrain
MTC-Vodafone Bahrain yesterday made key announcements on a senior addition to the company's corporate team and the launch of yet another regional "first" for Bahrain - the "Virtual Private Network" that will allow business organisations to build their own network within the MTC-Vodafone Bahrain network.
Chief Operating Officer Khalid Al Farkh announced the appointment of Mahmoud Hashish as Chief Commercial Officer "to take care of the expanding Bahrain market and to build on the strong products and services platter being developed by MTC-Vodafone Bahrain."
"Hashish comes with a wealth of telecoms and marketing expertise from MTC-Vodafone Kuwait and his appointment is a recognition of the importance of the Bahrain market to us," Al Farkh said.
The telecoms company's launch of the Virtual Private Network (VPN) marks another first for Bahrain after the launch of 3G services in december 2003. The network can be built by using a platform to link colleagues within a business organisation into their own network. Al Farkh compared the VPN to having a private PABX system at one's disposal.
"MTC-Vodafone Bahrain is the first member of the group to launch VPN. By grouping people within the network, businesses can take advantage of lower tariffs, since the linked numbers are billed at lower rates; they can also control the budget better because the network allows them to allocate telecoms spend per employee and per department," he said. "The VPN also allows businesses to harness their mobile telephony facilities and create their own directories using even two or three digit numbers to call each other, instead of the regular eight digits."
He said the sophisticated platform had already been signed up by two major corporate customers and was a thoroughly tested product measuring up to rigorous international standards.
"Tariffs for the VPN vary and are custom-made according to the data requirements and volume signed up for," he said.
Other firsts that the company announced was the introduction of live TV download onto mobile. The service has already started with the Bahrain television channels and will soon expand to regional television, satellite channels and selected sports, financial, news and expatriate entertainment channels.
"We are looking at introducing popularly used languages for our expatriate customers to make our electronic services such as the portal, the menu for our information and entertainment channels and other services more user-friendly. This will take place soon - within the next few weeks," Al Farkh said, "Next will be high-quality video and audio streaming that will make downloading a song onto the mobile cheaper than buying a CD!"
Al Farkh and Hashish said MTC-Vodafone Bahrain offered customers top value in terms of free services - free e-mail with up to 10 mb storage, free voice mail, free SMS(messages received) for prepaid roamers, free GPRS activation, free Internet access at the company's "Experience" Shops and cafes and free switching between packages. Post-paid customers have the advantage of zero registration and bundled MMS/SMS.
In addition, they emphasised, the network offered highest quality of voice data, shared minutes for corporate customers and fully bilingual electronic services - the portal, the integrated voice recorder, WAP services and the download menu embedded in the sim card.
© Bahrain Tribune 2004
