Citizens are naturally supposed to benefit from competition between two companies that provide the same service. In fact, this is the main reason why the concept of privatization exists.
In the field of communications, a new company was given the license to start offering its services. It achieved many goals in the shape of a sizzling competition to attract, seduce, and gain customer satisfaction. The present situation in cell-phone services is different from the previous one when customers had no choices but to accept the bitter reality that there was only one company and that this one company offered terrible communications services.
As for the services of 3.5G, which are considered a new transition in the field of wireless communication, competition has gone out of control and harmed customers.
The development of the high speed 3.5G network is considered to be the latest development in the field of communications. The 3.5G network can accommodate data transfer at speeds of up to 384 Kb/s and 2 Mb/s. The new technology incorporated in the high speed 3.5G network has brought with it a type of service which was previously not available such as users being able to make video calls and view TV channels.
What happened was that when one of the competitive companies announced their plans to start providing the 3.5G, a second company speeded up the process of partially activating the service. They opened the door for customers to subscribe to the service at the cost of enormous subscription fees. Customers who subscribed to 3.5G from the second company later discovered that the services were not fully activated and the project is still pending.
Surprising as it may be, yet it’s an expected result for rushing into producing services without making complete preparations. The move was a gimmick to ward off competition. The competition shifted from providing the best service into becoming the pioneer with the worst services.
The victims at the end of the day are the citizens, who end up losing their trust and confidence in different corporations. This improvisation reflects a terrible image of the communications industry in the Kingdom. It’s not fair because Saudi Arabia is trying its best to improve and advance. We are doing whatever it takes to keep up with international technicalities and development, yet everything has to be done wisely.
