No STC compensation for interruption

The Saudi Telecom Company (STC) will not compensate those who were affected by the recent interruption in the Eastern Province.
Addressing a press conference, Khaled Al-Bayari, vice president of STC Group, said: “This is because the interruption in cities, such as Dammam, Alkhobar, Dhahran, Qatif, Ras Tanura, Al-Khafji and Jubail, was merely for three hours.”
The media interaction was aimed at discussing the outages following the massive fire in Khamis Mushayt and the interruptions in the network across the Eastern Province.
Al-Bayari said: “STC network length is 130,000 km of optical fiber cables and this is continuously updated to meet growing demand.”
He said most of the interruptions occur due to the excavation work carried out by contractors outside cities and along highways.
“The number of network outages is 1,099 during the past 12 months at a rate of 3 outages per day. Customers did not feel these outages because there were alternative cables most of the times,” he said.
The company announced that it will compensate customers affected by the outage in Khamis Mushayt, including customers who have pre-paid Sawa service who will get unlimited text messages within the network, free international calls for 50 minutes, 1 GB Internet service for 10 days starting from the first of Ramadan.
The company said customers who have postpaid services will have a 33 percent discount for the next monthly bill. The discount does not include international calls.
On the other hand, the customers who have a postpaid service that are billed every two months will get a 17 percent discount on their coming bill, excluding international calls as well.
“Home phone services will include a one free month discount for those who got their services back again. The customers whose services are still interrupted will be offered an alternative service.”