RIYADH, 4 November 2007 — Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) launched yesterday an innovative postpaid package that combines the benefits of fixed-line telephony competitive rates and convenience of mobile communication, and set another regional benchmark by becoming the first Saudi and Gulf Cooperation Council telecom operator to offer a package based on home-zone billing technology.
The company said in a statement that the new package dubbed “Mada” (which means “range” in Arabic) is based on home-zone billing, whereby customers enjoy a competitive rate, whenever they are in a certain geographical area of their choice.
“We will continue to introduce new innovative services to the Saudi market. Home-zone billing allows customers to enjoy the benefits of more competitive rates on fixed-line calling without being tethered to their homes or offices,” said Khalid Al-Kaf, Mobily’s chief executive officer. “We introduced this new package to prove again to the market that he who owns the last mile to the customer does not own the customer,” Al-Kaf said, adding that “customers today have more freedom and choice with this new package.” In practice, this means that all customers need to do once they sign up from a new line or migrate from an existing Mobily package or from another operator, is set a certain area where they spend the majority of their day as their home-zone so as to benefit from the competitive rate.
Calls made inside the home-zone area are charged at SR0.20 per minute for calls made to other Mobily subscribers or fixed-line customers. Similar to Khatty Plus, calls made outside the home-zone or to other mobile networks are charged according to a flat-rate tariff of SR0.30 per minute to all national destinations. Subscribers can also assign one international as their favorite number and enjoy the associated discount.
Once Mobily Mada subscribers set their home-zone, any calls made to other Mobily customers and fixed-line subscribers within a radius of half a kilometer to a few kilometers will be charged a flat rate of SR0.20 per minute. The home-zone area can be set anywhere, at home, at the office, a café or a mall. Customers roaming around in their or close to their home-zone area can check whether they have left the home-zone area or not, by dialing *1100# or calling 1100 for free.
Among other services from Mobily based on this technology are “Friend Finder” and “Mobile Map.”
Moreover, Mobily once again rewards its subscribers with special discounts on international call fares. In fact, starting yesterday, Mobily made significant reductions on international calls that will last until Nov. 16. It has previously remunerated its customers with free minutes of talk, discounts and extra credits when they load their Mobily prepaid cards.
Under the current offer, the discounted international rate will be applicable on both prepaid and postpaid lines except for Rihal and Fallah subscribers. However, this discounted rate of up to 50 percent will only be applicable on the favorite international number and not on all international calls.
This offer covers 230 countries. The rate to the Gulf region is cut to SR0.60 per minute. The calls to Egypt, India, Pakistan and Sudan are reduced to SR1 per minute, while calls to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen reach as low as SR1.2
Calls to the US dropped to SR1.3 per minute and to SR1.4 for calls to France and Britain.
Rate to the Philippines was lowered to SR1.5 from SR1.9 per minute.
