JEDDAH, 8 June 2006 — The Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is launching its 3G high speed mobile phone service today.
STC President Saud Al-Duwaish said yesterday that the service would be available in Makkah, Madinah, Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Alkhobar, Dhahran, Hofuf, Jubail, Buraidah, Unaizah, Hail, Aljouf, Arar, Tabuk and Yanbu.
“The new service will allow STC phone subscribers and users to watch television channels and surf the Internet at high speed, reaching two megabytes per second,” he added.
In the second phase of the project, the 3G service will be made available in the remaining cities of the Kingdom by adding new services, thus meeting the requirements of its growing number of subscribers and users.
STC’s introduction of its 3G service follows its formal announcement of a new era in 3G communications in Riyadh a fortnight ago. STC is the largest operator in the Kingdom with over 11 million customers.
3G literally means 3rd Generation. With 3G, one can enjoy video calling, high speed video streaming and mobile Internet six times faster than the current GSM networks.
Some of the manufacturers of mobile phones have been racing against time to produce handsets that suit the 3G needs. Some of the models that are 3G capable are Nokia 6680, Nokia N70, Nokia N90 and Sony Erricson K608. STC is rolling out the largest 3G network in the Middle East and activating a full service including voice and video calls, live TV and high speed downlink data packet access running up to 1.5Mbp — the fastest internet access available.
