Telecommunication giant Zain has achieved another first by launching its groundbreaking and borderless “One Network” mobile service in four Middle East countries.
The launch ceremony was held simultaneously in Bahrain, the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Baghdad and the Jordanian capital city of Amman. It enables Zain subscribers in these four countries to be on the ‘local’ network.
“This service allows Zain’s 14 million customers in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan and Sudan to be part of a pan-Middle East mobile community, providing them the opportunity to communicate between these countries and be treated as local customers in terms of pricing, while using their home network service,” said Zain Bahrain chief executive officer and general manager Dr Ahmed Al Shatti.
“We shall soon extend this service to other countries across the Middle East where we have operations and even beyond, depending on when we can find partners,” he said.
“The day is not far when a large part of the world could be a part of the service, which would eliminate global roaming.”
He said the user friendly service is a non-burdening experience and is automatically activated when Zain customers from the four countries cross borders, thus enabling them to stay in touch with friends, colleagues and family members at a reduced cost.
“This is a defining moment in the history of the Middle East and global telecommunications and a major step forward in our intent to become one of the top 10 global mobile operators by 2011.”
He said the launch helped fulfill Zain’s promise to deliver to its customers a unique and rewarding Zain brand experience.
“As well as allowing Zain’s pre-paid and post-paid customers to make calls and SMS at local rates and receive incoming calls free-of-charge, the service enables them to top-up their mobile phone credits with locally purchased scratch cards, which are widely available in more than 200,000 points of sales.”
He said there was no need for pre-registration, no extra fees, no roaming deposits and no complicated dialing formats.
He said Zain customers would continue to have access to all of their home country services.
