DAMMAM, 26 September 2004 — The Saudi Telecom Company is experiencing unprecedented rush for new telephone connections and officials admit that it is becoming difficult for the company to deliver.

STC’s offer of new telephone connections or additional phone line without installation charges has caught people’s imagination and the company is flooded with applications.

Prior to this offer, STC charged SR300 for a new connection. The company has reduced the paperwork and simplified the procedure; neither a guarantee letter is required nor a sponsor.

According to STC officials here, who spoke on condition of anonymity, 907 is receiving hundreds of calls every day applying for new connections and additional telephone lines.

If a customer calls 907 for a new number it is immediately given and he is given a date when a technician will contact him for the connection. However, a cross-section of new subscribers say that the technician never calls on the given date and upon several inquiries to 907, they are again given a new booking.

“Even then the technician never arrives,” said an Indian subscriber in Abdullah Fouad area, who had to wait for more than 10 days for the STC technician. “When he eventually did, the connection was not made. The technician told me that there was provision for only two lines in my building which has three apartments.”

However, STC officials assured the Indian subscriber that within three days a new line would be connected; that never happened.

Residents in the region say that the telephone company should have anticipated a huge rush for new connections in the wake of the free installation offer.

STC is also experiencing another big rush in the conversion of SAWA prepaid service into Al-Jawal account service. Once made Al-Jawal the subscriber will not require prepaid cards and his local calls will be much cheaper than the calls he will make through SAWA prepaid service.

This conversion can be made at any STC office for a fee of SR100 as new connection charge. The subscriber pays a monthly rental of SR60 and has a call limit of SR500. For this conversion also the subscriber does not require any guarantor or sponsor. He has to produce only his identification card.