JEDDAH, 15 December 2005 — Due to network upgrades, Al-Jawal customers over the past week have been experiencing an onslaught of repeated incoming SMS messages. Messages sent between mobile phone subscribers were being repeated and sent up to five times per message.
“My first concern was that my friends were being charged four or five times to send the same message,” Patrick, 32, told Arab News. “When I messaged them to tell them, they told me my message was also repeated. I tried to call Al-Jawal to find out what this was costing us, but the automated system put me on hold for 15 minutes then disconnected. I wasn’t able to get through to anyone to find out.”
Shams, another customer who has been experiencing the same technical difficulty thought the problem was with his phone. “I thought my phone had a virus so I took it in to be checked. When I picked it up it was still doing the same thing,” he told Arab News.
Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, a customer service representative at Al-Jawal, told Arab News that customers need not worry about their phones as this was a network problem that is being resolved.
“What is happening is that due to network upgrades the network is not registering that the message has been delivered, so it stays bouncing around, until it is registered as being delivered. Customers are only being charged once, not three, four, or five times,” Al-Ghamdi said.
