Jeddah - Mobile phone users can look forward to cheaper calls with Mobily announcing its plans yesterday to expand its network in all parts of Saudi Arabia and be more competitive.
The announcement was made at a press conference held at Jeddah Hilton, which coincided with the Kingdom's second mobile operator reaching a record figure of one million users of its both prepaid and postpaid packages within three months of its launch.
"We already have a number of services on offer and will be introducing some more as we expand our network, all in the interest of our customers," Mobily's Chief Executive Officer Khalid Al-Kaf said.
Mobily was launched on May 25, which coincided with the school final exams that followed the summer vacation. Mobily's remarkable achievement in less than three months, which is a record in the Middle East, has exceeded all projections made by international market research groups Pyramid & EMC, he said. Mobily is the first Saudi company to have obtained the third generation license. It is set to launch its 3G services at the beginning of 2006.
"Mobily is ushering a turning point which needs extraordinary endeavors," Al-Kaf said. Its current market share is 9.4 percent. "We've introduced the most competitive rates for international calls in the whole region, with international roaming for prepaid cards, for the first time in the Kingdom. We've also introduced, for the first time, the services of MMS, LBS, and GPRS with a faster speed and creative methods, Al-Kaf said.
Mobily has made a remarkable achievement on the ground, by installing more than 1,200 base stations for the network. Today, the Mobily network covers 32 cities as against 14 that it had committed before obtaining the license in the first six months of operation," its Chief Operation Officer Abdulaziz Al-Tamami said.
"In fact, the Mobily network coverage was already in 32 cities before the end of the fifth month. This is in addition to the national roaming agreement, signed with the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) to cover the highways and the rest of the Kingdom.
Mobily is working round-the-clock with its major contractors Alcatel, Motorola, Ericsson and Huwawie to complete the second phase of the network, which includes covering 90 percent of the populated areas of the Kingdom as well as the highways by the end of 2005. This will require installing around 2,200 base stations and towers.
National roaming aims to ensure Kingdomwide coverage for Mobily users. All they have to do is to go to network selection on their handsets, select manual mode and select Al Jawwal. This is to be followed only in the non-coverage areas and some selected highways. "The same Mobily charges apply although they are roaming on another network. This is only a temporary arrangement as we expand the network coverage," Al-Tamami said.
Mobily is a Saudi company and its focus is on the Kingdom, he said.
By K.S. Ramkumar
© Arab News 2005
