AMMAN, 22 July 2004 — Four Arab mobile service operators have teamed up to form the first alliance of mobile operators in the MENA region, it was announced here yesterday.
The avowed aims of the grouping will be the promotion of innovations and developments in the multimedia services, Internet access, content services and seamless roaming between regional national markets, according to Michael Ghossein, CEO of Jordan’s Mobilecom, one the signatories of the Middle East Value-Added Service Alliance.
The other three mobile service operators involved are Kuwait’s Wataniya, Qatar’s Otel and Bahrain’s Batelco.
Under the agreement signed by the four companies, subscribers roaming in any of the alliance countries will be able to get all the services by their home firm provides.
“Pre-paid line subscribers can now roam freely in the countries of the alliance and receive the same range of services they do at home, in addition to GPRS roaming,” Ghossein said.
The alliance will be open to any interested mobile communication company in the Arab world, but the competing firms within the same countries must have the approval of their current ally before joining the pact, Batelco’s General Manager Ian Dench said.
The four founding members currently serve over three million mobile customers in the MENA region, with networks operating in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Algeria, Tunisia and Jordan.
Experts put the total number of mobile phone users in the MENA region at about 25 million. The figure is expected to double by the year 2005.
