Friday 4 October 2013

Saudi Telecom Company is ready for this year's Haj season, said Abdulaziz Al-Sugair, chairman and managing director of STC. In an interview with Arab News, he said that the network capacity had been expanded by 30 percent to accommodate the needs of more than 31 million users. "This is equivalent to the network capacity of many countries combined. We are honored to present this service to pilgrims coming to the Kingdom. We keep upgrading our network with 4G capacity and we are the first to introduce this service," he said. "We have increased the number of working international circuits between Saudi Arabia and the rest of the world to 195,000, especially in the MENA region. The network can process more than five terabytes simultaneously," he added.

He also explained how the group upgraded other services. "We amended our Wi-Fi services to utilize rates that reach up to 42 megabytes. We increased the Wi-Fi capacity in Mina by covering more locations. We added more than 296 Wi-Fi hotspot devices to enable pilgrims to browse the Internet free of charge in many spots within the holy sites. Many of our local customers can also freely access the service. As for customers of other operators, they can have access to our network through prepaid cards." Pilgrims have complained about insufficient coverage or weak signals, especially during the Haj season, which they claim is due to an insufficient number of towers.

"We know from experience from the previous years that such occurrences are limited. Sometimes the network gets too busy. There are simply too many people in a very small area, but we are equipped to assure the smoothness of communication. The numbers that we have achieved in the past are an eloquent testimony to our capability," said Al-Sugair. He added: "We have deployed thousands of our staff for this season and we are well prepared for any contingency." "We are an integrated service provider. That is what distinguishes us from others. Our guests can access all our services from one place. We have provided numerous phone booths for phone calls. You can find them almost everywhere, from the ports if entry to the holy places. Any visitor can make phone calls and access the Internet by using a prepaid card. It's that simple."

© Arab News 2013