20 March 2005
MUSCAT -- Oman Telecommunications Company (Oman Mobile), the pioneer telecom operator in the Sultanate, has risen to the challenge of stiff competition posed by Nawras by making 13, or more, exciting, new offers, which are set to take the telecommunications market here by storm. Of the new services -- some of them have already been in the news -- at least 10 are totally new and are ready to bowl over the subscriber, top Oman Mobile officials said at a well-attended launch of these new offers at Grand Hyatt Hotel yesterday.
Competition brings the best out of everyone and that is clearly evident in these brand new offers from Oman Mobile.
For instance, the GSM monthly subscription fee has been reduced from RO4 to RO3, at the rate of 25 per cent.
Subscribers (post-paid) can also say goodbye to distance-based charging, because from now, they can call anywhere in the Sultanate from 35 baisas and the new pricing plan is cheaper and simpler, with the peak price offer being put at 45 baisas a minute and off-peak prices put at 35 baisas a minute.
Oman Mobile has waived off the RO5 subscription fee (installation charge for post-paid). Also, it has introduced roaming facilities where subscribers can receive calls and SMS in 167 roaming operators in 76 countries. In the future, the subscriber can receive and make calls while travelling in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The call tariff for Hayyak subscribers have been reduced by lowering off-peak rate to 45 baisas, at a rate of 18.18
per cent. The present 55 baisas tariff for calls during the peak period remains the same.
The rate of the starter kit has been reduced from RO20 to RO14, which shows a discount of 30 per cent, and this kit is available all over the Sultanate.
Oman Mobile has also announced the introduction of a new Hayyak RO1.5 top-up voucher suitable for students and low-budget subscribers, which will soon be available in the Sultanate. This is considered to be the lowest recharge in Oman.
Also, the price per MMS (picture message) has also been reduced (as of yesterday), from 50 baisas to 45 baisas, a 10 per cent reduction.
Another thoughtful service is a special package to mark Mother's Day, by offering the Hayyak starter kit plus a Motorola camera colour screen handset for RO55. This again shows that Oman Mobile is keeping abreast of various kinds of events. The offer is meant to facilitate everyone to offer the most special person in the family a handset, a gesture which surely adds to strengthening the ties between the mother and her son/daughter.
Oman Mobile has also introduced a set of value-added services, which include:
miss call alert via SMS when the subscriber is off the coverage area or off-service handset
call forwarding
call identification
multiparty
auto fax
data
The other services, which they announced recently, include the offer of:
Hayyak SMS for 10bzs per day, during both peak and off peak hours
Extending the validity of Hayyak to 365 days instead of 150 days for all card denominations, thus the customer can keep his/her number and credit for one more year, which brings not only transparency but also no worry about the expiration date
Oman Mobile was the first to launch Taif services for Hayyak subscribers providing the multimedia services (MMS) facilitating picture message at the rate of 50bzs per each picture and the general package radio services (GPRS), which facilitates the WAP Internet surfing at the rate of 3bzs per one kilobyte. There is no activation fee or monthly fees for these services, with only payment for the usage.
These offers come barely three days after Nawras, Oman's new mobile communications operator, commenced its services.
Commenting on the brand new offers, Dr Amer Awadh Al Rawas, managing director, Oman Mobile, said: "If these are not good offers, then what are?"
Those present at the conference included Adil Ismail Alraisi, head of customer service; and Aneth Arosemena, head of sales and marketing division.
"As part of its attempts to promote and improve the service categories rendered to the subscribers, Oman Mobile has prompted a comprehensive study focusing on the methodology of boosting the offered services, introducing modern technologies and adopting simplified procedures.
"The objective is to provide simple and fast services to the customers through ideal performance for all Oman Mobile present and potential subscribers," Dr Amer Al Rawas said.
In juncture, training courses were conducted to qualify the company's human resources cadres locally and abroad.
Hence, the standard of services offered can be highly promoted. However, Oman Mobile is adopting a non-stationed job method, i.e. the employee moves around all the positions available to grasp knowledge and experience and become well aware of the customer's desires.
Oman Mobile has also increased the number of staff manning the call centres (196) from 30 to 80, and they plan to go further in the near future, Dr Rawas said. The focal point of the call centre is the quality and attitude towards callers' enquiries. For this purpose, a unique system of answering has been enforced, he noted.
"Oman Mobile is persevering to render simple service to its subscribers to save them from any complications," Dr Rawas stressed. In this regard, the company inaugurated its first full services at Al Araimi complex in Qurum, which provides the best services to its customers.
Recently, the company has inaugurated 20 auto-bill payment points, a most sophisticated joint venture with Omantel, and still more are on the way.
The company has also introduced a mini-SMS bill that allows the subscriber to check his/her bill and via SMS by dialling the special line 90099, as well as a credit alert for Hayyak subscribers, also by SMS.
To ensure service continuity to all subscribers, the company has developed a customer credit management policy, whereas the customer will receive an SMS automatically when he/she reaches 90 per cent of the stated ceiling limit.
"Since its establishment, Oman Mobile has stretched links of material and morale participations with various community sectors. This comes within the context of the company's strategy of providing services to the community, citizens and expatriates in the same dimension.
"As such, it is not uncommon that Oman Mobile has participated in most of the previous cultural, social and artistic events organised by various bodies.
"In this trend, Oman Mobile sponsored Muscat Festival 2005, where it offered many simple and attractive services, prizes and give-outs with the intention to bring smile, especially to children," Dr Rawas said.
In the sports field, Oman Mobile sponsored the Arab soccer stars versus Oman national team, as well as many other activities organised in the Sultanate. Oman Mobile participated in the book fair, as part of its participation in enriching the cultural and intellectual trend in the Sultanate.
Also, the company, in supporting the knowledge development, had organised in early March, the Gamer contest, in collaboration with Sultan Qaboos University, inspiring SQU students to design mobile games. This event comes in line with the company's strategy to keep connected with scientific and academic institutions and inspires the students' talents. With these participations, the company achieves its motto, 'connected with you', by connecting with all community sectors at all times.
Oman Mobile owns a comprehensive distribution network providing services that covers 90 per cent of the population settlements. The company operates 11,000 point-of-sale in the Sultanate wide for Hayyak top-up vouchers and 400 outlets for Hayyak starter kits.
Since its establishment in March last year, Oman Mobile perceived attaining the Omanisation compliance with the government's inclination in this respect, thus being one of the leading institutions to reach 91 per cent Omanisation.
"The company spares no effort to furnish state-of-the-art services that make the life of its subscribers easy and cool through provision of varieties of wide-scaled services, which reflect the Oman Mobile values: professional and trusted, simple and innovative, transparent and fair. These values have been exploited in the interest of the customer," Dr Rawas said.
MUSCAT -- Oman Telecommunications Company (Oman Mobile), the pioneer telecom operator in the Sultanate, has risen to the challenge of stiff competition posed by Nawras by making 13, or more, exciting, new offers, which are set to take the telecommunications market here by storm. Of the new services -- some of them have already been in the news -- at least 10 are totally new and are ready to bowl over the subscriber, top Oman Mobile officials said at a well-attended launch of these new offers at Grand Hyatt Hotel yesterday.
Competition brings the best out of everyone and that is clearly evident in these brand new offers from Oman Mobile.
For instance, the GSM monthly subscription fee has been reduced from RO4 to RO3, at the rate of 25 per cent.
Subscribers (post-paid) can also say goodbye to distance-based charging, because from now, they can call anywhere in the Sultanate from 35 baisas and the new pricing plan is cheaper and simpler, with the peak price offer being put at 45 baisas a minute and off-peak prices put at 35 baisas a minute.
Oman Mobile has waived off the RO5 subscription fee (installation charge for post-paid). Also, it has introduced roaming facilities where subscribers can receive calls and SMS in 167 roaming operators in 76 countries. In the future, the subscriber can receive and make calls while travelling in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The call tariff for Hayyak subscribers have been reduced by lowering off-peak rate to 45 baisas, at a rate of 18.18
per cent. The present 55 baisas tariff for calls during the peak period remains the same.
The rate of the starter kit has been reduced from RO20 to RO14, which shows a discount of 30 per cent, and this kit is available all over the Sultanate.
Oman Mobile has also announced the introduction of a new Hayyak RO1.5 top-up voucher suitable for students and low-budget subscribers, which will soon be available in the Sultanate. This is considered to be the lowest recharge in Oman.
Also, the price per MMS (picture message) has also been reduced (as of yesterday), from 50 baisas to 45 baisas, a 10 per cent reduction.
Another thoughtful service is a special package to mark Mother's Day, by offering the Hayyak starter kit plus a Motorola camera colour screen handset for RO55. This again shows that Oman Mobile is keeping abreast of various kinds of events. The offer is meant to facilitate everyone to offer the most special person in the family a handset, a gesture which surely adds to strengthening the ties between the mother and her son/daughter.
Oman Mobile has also introduced a set of value-added services, which include:
miss call alert via SMS when the subscriber is off the coverage area or off-service handset
call forwarding
call identification
multiparty
auto fax
data
The other services, which they announced recently, include the offer of:
Hayyak SMS for 10bzs per day, during both peak and off peak hours
Extending the validity of Hayyak to 365 days instead of 150 days for all card denominations, thus the customer can keep his/her number and credit for one more year, which brings not only transparency but also no worry about the expiration date
Oman Mobile was the first to launch Taif services for Hayyak subscribers providing the multimedia services (MMS) facilitating picture message at the rate of 50bzs per each picture and the general package radio services (GPRS), which facilitates the WAP Internet surfing at the rate of 3bzs per one kilobyte. There is no activation fee or monthly fees for these services, with only payment for the usage.
These offers come barely three days after Nawras, Oman's new mobile communications operator, commenced its services.
Commenting on the brand new offers, Dr Amer Awadh Al Rawas, managing director, Oman Mobile, said: "If these are not good offers, then what are?"
Those present at the conference included Adil Ismail Alraisi, head of customer service; and Aneth Arosemena, head of sales and marketing division.
"As part of its attempts to promote and improve the service categories rendered to the subscribers, Oman Mobile has prompted a comprehensive study focusing on the methodology of boosting the offered services, introducing modern technologies and adopting simplified procedures.
"The objective is to provide simple and fast services to the customers through ideal performance for all Oman Mobile present and potential subscribers," Dr Amer Al Rawas said.
In juncture, training courses were conducted to qualify the company's human resources cadres locally and abroad.
Hence, the standard of services offered can be highly promoted. However, Oman Mobile is adopting a non-stationed job method, i.e. the employee moves around all the positions available to grasp knowledge and experience and become well aware of the customer's desires.
Oman Mobile has also increased the number of staff manning the call centres (196) from 30 to 80, and they plan to go further in the near future, Dr Rawas said. The focal point of the call centre is the quality and attitude towards callers' enquiries. For this purpose, a unique system of answering has been enforced, he noted.
"Oman Mobile is persevering to render simple service to its subscribers to save them from any complications," Dr Rawas stressed. In this regard, the company inaugurated its first full services at Al Araimi complex in Qurum, which provides the best services to its customers.
Recently, the company has inaugurated 20 auto-bill payment points, a most sophisticated joint venture with Omantel, and still more are on the way.
The company has also introduced a mini-SMS bill that allows the subscriber to check his/her bill and via SMS by dialling the special line 90099, as well as a credit alert for Hayyak subscribers, also by SMS.
To ensure service continuity to all subscribers, the company has developed a customer credit management policy, whereas the customer will receive an SMS automatically when he/she reaches 90 per cent of the stated ceiling limit.
"Since its establishment, Oman Mobile has stretched links of material and morale participations with various community sectors. This comes within the context of the company's strategy of providing services to the community, citizens and expatriates in the same dimension.
"As such, it is not uncommon that Oman Mobile has participated in most of the previous cultural, social and artistic events organised by various bodies.
"In this trend, Oman Mobile sponsored Muscat Festival 2005, where it offered many simple and attractive services, prizes and give-outs with the intention to bring smile, especially to children," Dr Rawas said.
In the sports field, Oman Mobile sponsored the Arab soccer stars versus Oman national team, as well as many other activities organised in the Sultanate. Oman Mobile participated in the book fair, as part of its participation in enriching the cultural and intellectual trend in the Sultanate.
Also, the company, in supporting the knowledge development, had organised in early March, the Gamer contest, in collaboration with Sultan Qaboos University, inspiring SQU students to design mobile games. This event comes in line with the company's strategy to keep connected with scientific and academic institutions and inspires the students' talents. With these participations, the company achieves its motto, 'connected with you', by connecting with all community sectors at all times.
Oman Mobile owns a comprehensive distribution network providing services that covers 90 per cent of the population settlements. The company operates 11,000 point-of-sale in the Sultanate wide for Hayyak top-up vouchers and 400 outlets for Hayyak starter kits.
Since its establishment in March last year, Oman Mobile perceived attaining the Omanisation compliance with the government's inclination in this respect, thus being one of the leading institutions to reach 91 per cent Omanisation.
"The company spares no effort to furnish state-of-the-art services that make the life of its subscribers easy and cool through provision of varieties of wide-scaled services, which reflect the Oman Mobile values: professional and trusted, simple and innovative, transparent and fair. These values have been exploited in the interest of the customer," Dr Rawas said.
© Times of Oman 2005
