RIYADH, 8 February — The Saudi Telecommunications Company is planning to slash telephone charges shortly by 10 to 20 percent on international and domestic calls by ordinary and mobile phones, informed sources said. They said STC’s board of directors meeting on Saturday would take a decision on the proposed tariff cuts.
The sources expect a 10 to 20 percent cut in rates for inter-city calls and 15 to 20 percent cut for international calls made from ordinary telephones. They hope that the new cuts will come into effect by the middle of next month.
The sources said the new measures would bring down the charge for mobile phone calls to SR1 per minute from SR1.2. “The new proposals also include the reduction of mobile connection fee from SR1,500 to SR800 and that of family mobiles from SR500 to SR400,” they said.
Arab News learned that STC would launch a new service called “Student Mobile” at a fee of SR500. It will allow the subscriber to contact 16 numbers including international calls. The family mobile allows only eight domestic numbers.
Saleh Al-Jasir, marketing manager of the mobile communications unit at STC, said demand for family mobile had exceeded all expectations. “So far we have marketed 220,000 family mobile phones bringing the total mobile phone subscribers to more than 1.4 million,” he added.
The sources said the company had made more than SR29 million in revenue by granting family mobile connections.
