RIYADH, 24 July 2007 — Mobily, the Kingdom’s second mobile operator, said yesterday that it has reached 1.8 million subscribers in all 3.5G services, beating all the records in the Middle East and North Africa. Mobily’s spokesperson Humoud Al-Ghobaini said: “Mobily subscribers can enjoy the services of 3.5G without changing or swapping SIM, and this is a unique service offered by Mobily only, a major factor in raising the number of 3.5G subscribers.”
“We have covered Hofuf and Shaibah with 3.5G network recently where Saudi Aramco has some facilities there, so a broadband service can be made available to Internet users as well. Mobily data bundle subscribers download a terabyte (1,000 gigabyte) daily, and this is equivalent to what 140,000 subscribers download daily in one of the European mobile operators,” Al-Ghobaini added.
According to him, Mobily will invest SR1 billion in expanding the 3.5G network before the year-end. “We will include more cities and towns, and extend broadband services to accommodate the high unprecedented traffic on our nodes.”
The Mobily 3G subscribers get several free added-value services besides features such as video conversations, high-speed Internet access and television channels, games and watching video clips.
Mobily completed its own 3.5G network last year, which covers 23 cities and towns in the Kingdom, consisting of more than 1,000 base stations. Mobily which started its operation with 2.5G network in mid-2005, was the first Saudi company to obtain the license of the 3G and 3.5G mobile services, and has been able to build an excellent infrastructure of both generations in a record time.