RIYADH: Mobily is contemplating action against construction contractor Saudi Oger, which allegedly cut two main fiber optic cables, leading to 100 percent disruption of its services on Wednesday evening in the Kingdom’s central and eastern regions, a spokesman for the telecommunication company said yesterday.
“Both cables were core to keeping Mobily’s network on air and its customers in touch,” said Humoud Al-Ghobaini, Mobily’s corporate communications manager, in a statement.
Mobily, which is the official brand name of Etihad Etisalat, is now calculating the losses caused by the outage, which may run in the region of hundreds of thousands of riyals or even in millions of riyals, according to Al-Ghobaini.
“The outage of Mobily services caused considerable trouble for our 11 million customers across the Kingdom,” he added.
The company is currently considering how to compensate customers for the disruption of service, which could be free minutes or billing credit. Mobily claims that Saudi Oger had been provided detailed maps of the location of the company’s fiber optic lines.
“Regardless of the advance intimation, and the fact that the cables were buried under seven meters of concrete, Saudi Oger cut through the major cables,” said the statement.
Saudi Oger did not reply to Arab News attempts to get a response to Mobily’s accusations.
Mobily was able to restore service by around 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
