MUSCAT -- Nawras has launched its latest SMS service, notifying customers of prayer times for Muscat and Salalah as well as major cities in the GCC. For Ramadhan, Nawras has included the Shrooq (sunrise), Imsak (the time fasting begins ahead of Fajr morning prayers) and the five prayer times during the day. The service is simple to use. Customers send the city name, perhaps Salalah or Mecca, to 90900 and receive a reply with the day's prayer times listed.
Similarly, to plan ahead, customers can send 'Muscat 20', for example, to the same number, and this will produce the prayer times for Muscat on September 20. Each SMS costs just 10Bz during Ramadhan. Nawras Product Manager, VAS & Messaging, Yasser al Ameer, introduced the service by saying, "Nawras is the only mobile operator in the Sultanate to be providing this service and we have already received a very good response during the testing period. We believe this prayer notification by SMS will be appreciated by many of our customers, particularly now, during the holy month of Ramadhan.
It is always our intention to provide services that help our customers and based on feedback we have previously received, we know that this new SMS prayer time notification will be handy for many people, especially for those travelling within the GCC at this special time." Places that are currently listed in the prayer time notification are Muscat, Salalah, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Mecca, Medina, Kuwait City and Manama. Any one of these destinations can be sent by SMS to 90900 to receive the prayer time SMS.
For example, a Nawras customer in Kuwait City can send 'Kuwait' by SMS to 90900 and a few seconds later, will receive the times of the five prayers and the time for shrooq. When messages are sent from abroad, the local roaming rates of the country being visited and the mobile operator being used will apply to the SMS. Nawras is also encouraging customers to support the Oman Charitable Organisation (OCO) during the holy month of Ramadhan. SMS donations can be made by simply sending an SMS with the word 'DONATE' to the number 90095. For each SMS sent, Bz 209 will be given to the OCO to provide assistance for those most in need. Nawras will be charging anything for these SMS.
By Staff Reporter
© Oman Daily Observer 2007
