The wireless phone, Al Jawwal, network in Saudi Arabia is pretty bad — call quality is low, reception in many areas is poor, calls frequently drop, etc.
Additionally, I use BlackBerry. The BlackBerry service here is not only subpar, it is also expensive. I pay 100 SAR (~$26)/month for the subscription, which doesn’t support many BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) applications and doesn’t support HTML emails. This is an unrestricted plan — it’s not like I could upgrade to a better plan that supports these things.
My cell phone service is with Saudi Telecom Company (STC), my wife is with Mobily (UAE Etisalat) — they both suck equally. But why?
STC and Mobily are not the only two service providers in Saudi, there’s also the Kuwaiti provider, Zain. Why hasn’t the competition among these providers driven the quality of service up? Business practices and even service rates of these companies are controlled by a bunch of people who call themselves Saudi Communications Authority or something like that. So ultimately, these seemingly independant service providers are as govenment controlled as China’s.
Moreover, after a certain period of operation, foreign owned providers are required to give away the majority of their companies back to the Saudi government, so they’re probably just in it for a quick buck — not long term reputation based on quality of service.
I like to contrast these Saudi underhanded schemes with UAE’s openly evil policies. In UAE, there are only two service providers: Etisalat and Du. Both are directly and indirectly government controlled. Their service rates are not the most competitive and they do some pure evil things, such as blocking family and loved ones from contacting each other using Skype and requiring them to use normal phones with expensive rates.
Despite these things, though, the quality of wireless networks in UAE are at least twice as good as that of Saudi. Etisalat reception is full even outside urban areas and their BlackBerry service is up to date and reliable.
In the end, both UAE and Saudi don’t really have a free wireless service market. Saudi has created the illusion of a free market while UAE couldn’t give a fuck if the mostly-foreign population had a free wireless market. Me personally, I’d prefer the blunt and oppressive provider with better service over the sleazy schemer with shaky service.
