JEDDAH, 13 October 2004 — Charges of domestic telephone calls will be cut from 40 to 10 halalas and SAWA phone charges from SR1.20 to 85 halalas per minute under new STC discounts announced by the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) on Monday.
Saudi Telecom Company will also cut Internet service charges by offering two new packages. In the first package, clients will get direct access to the Internet by paying five halalas per minute, the company said giving details of the new discounts, which will come into effect during Ramadan and Shawwal.
The CITC, the Kingdom’s telecom regulator, also cut rates of Internet service through the Internet service providers (ISPs) by 25 percent. In this package, clients will pay both ISP subscription and contacting charges, which have been reduced to SR2.25 per hour.
The company will reduce ordinary mobile phone charges by introducing two new bouquets. In the first bouquet, clients will pay a monthly subscription of SR45 and 35 halalas per minute for calls while in the second they will pay a monthly subscription of SR35 and 45 halalas per minute for calls.
“As per the new tariff, the charge for local and national calls will be reduced to 10 halalas by paying SR15 monthly,” the company said. The charges for calls from land phone to mobile will be cut from 45 to 40 halalas per minute.
For SMS messages the charges will be cut from 30 to 25 halalas per message within the Kingdom and from 70 to 60 halalas per message outside the Kingdom, the company said. For rented telephone circuits the charges have been slashed by 10 to 35 percent.
Khaled Al-Mulhem, president of STC, said the new discounts were made to keep STC service rates competitive at regional and international levels. He estimated the total number of STC clients at more than 13 million.
