RIYADH, 9 June 2007 — Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) announced yesterday the launch of video call roaming for its customers in Malaysia through an agreement with Maxis, a Malaysian mobile operator.
Last month, it signed a similar roaming agreement for 3rd-Generation mobile services with French mobile phone operator SFR and launched broadband data connectivity, based on high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), service roaming in cooperation with T-Mobile in Britain.
“According to the terms of the two 3rd-Generation roaming agreements, customers from the two foreign operators can enjoy the use of video calling, high-speed data connectivity, mobile television when they roam in the Kingdom, and likewise for Mobily’s customers when visiting either of the two countries,” Humoud Al-Ghobaini, senior manager, corporate communications, Mobily, said.
Mobily further upped the ante by launching global packet radio service (GPRS) and multimedia messaging service (MMS) with another three operators last week, E-Plus in Germany, Du in the United Arab Emirates, and K-Cell in Kazakhistan. Mobily has GPRS and MMS roaming agreements with 120 operators worldwide.”
Last month, Mobily signed GPRS and MMS roaming agreements with Claro in Brazil, MTC in Kuwait, DTAC in Thailand. Earlier, Mobily signed similar roaming agreements with AT&T’s Cingular in the United States, Italy’s H3G and Belgacom.
The agreements allow Mobily customers and subscribers of the allied operators to surf the Internet using GPRS and send MMS while roaming. Under the Mobily’s prepaid roaming agreements, its customers have access to international roaming in 51 countries worldwide through 80 mobile phone networks. Its recent prepaid roaming agreements signed include deals with Palestinian operator Jawwal, Etisalat Misr in Egypt, Du, Tunicell, Grameenphone in Bangladesh, MTN in South Africa and Cingular, as well as a slew of operators in the Arab region including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Morocco and European countries such as France, Germany, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and a number of East Asian states.