JEDDAH, 15 February 2004 — If you want both a national and an international dialing facility on your telephone, Saudi Telecom Company has now made it easily available free of bother.

No paper work or guarantor is needed; no more filling out forms and running from pillar to post; no deposit or installation fee or sponsor’s letter is needed to get the service.

In order to take advantage of the offer, you must call 907 from the phone on which you want the service. Upon pressing 907, you will get a recorded Arabic message; in order to continue in English, press 8 and you will hear details of the available services. For a national/international line you must press 7.

After pressing 7, you will be told to enter your iqama number from the number pad. Once you have entered your iqama number, you will be told to press 1 if you want international dialing.

The moment you press 1, you will be asked to reconfirm your request by pressing 1 again. After reconfirming, you will be told that your line will be activated for international calls within four hours. If you want only in-Kingdom (national) calls, then press 2 and follow the instructions.

Muhammad Ehrazuddin Ahmad, who was able to get the international connection using the 907 number, said: “Normally it does not take more than four hours but at times it can take up to 24. It all depends on the number of requests STC gets from one particular exchange.”

You may also get the service by pressing 907 and to continue in English, press 8 and in order to reach an STC employee, press 0. The employee will ask your name and iqama number which he will check with your name and iqama number already registered with STC.

If the details match STC records, the employee will record your request and it should be available on your phone within a few hours.

STC also has a number of attractive offers. These include a special offer for a list of numbers of 10 friends. For a small fee — 10 riyals monthly — calls to these numbers get a 25 percent discount.

A subscriber can also include two international numbers in the list. STC also offers such services as caller ID for SR120 a year, call waiting for SR20 a year and conference calling for SR24 a year. Voice mail and call forwarding are also offered.