JEDDAH, 11 March — Users of family mobile phones can now upgrade the service into full-scale mobiles by just paying a fee of SR400, Mushabbeb Al-Aiban, director of the Saudi Telecommunications Company in Jizan, said yesterday.
The move follows a major tariff cut announced by the company recently. The STC reduced mobile phone connection fee from SR1,500 to SR800 and family mobile fee from SR500 to SR400 effective from yesterday. The company has already marketed 250,000 family mobile phone connections.
As per the new mobile phone tariff approved by the company’s board of directors, STC will charge 95 halalas instead of SR1.20 per minute during peak hours and 50 halalas per minute during off-peak hours. It has also cut short message charges from 50 to 30 halalas per message.
The company will start distributing prepaid mobile phone chips by the end of this year, according to Abdul Rahman Al-Yami, the company’s director general. Speaking to Arab News, he said the service was delayed due to technical reasons.
Yami said the company was trying to expand its infrastructure facilities. “We are now preparing to provide Internet service,” he said. Experimental operations are under way on a new service to inform telephone bills through mobile phones, he added.
Yami said the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) would be made available within two months. WAP will enable cell phone subscribers to surf the Internet through their phones.
To access WAP, users must purchase a WAP phone, which looks similar to standard cell phones but has a larger display screen and additional function keys.
