Arab News
 
Riyadh, Nov 5: Many citizens and residents found it difficult to make overseas calls through their Saudi Telecom Co. (STC) mobile phones in the past two days. The reason: STC's latest promotion offering free time after the first five minutes of any outgoing local or international call.

"I have been trying to contact my parents in Kerala for the last two days, but failed," said M.A. Abdul Karim, an Indian sales assistant at a supermarket in Jeddah. "It seems all lines are jammed because of the ongoing promotion."

STC's latest promotion, which began on Sunday and continues for a month, allows customers to make "voice calls for free after the fifth minute including international calls."

STC, however, said their network was fine and the fault is at the receiving end.

"The so-called congestion of our lines is not due to a fault in the Saudi network, but is because of a problem at the receiving end," STC's Riyadh-based General Manager Jameel Mulheim told Arab News yesterday.

"When we introduced the promotion we knew there would be a huge response and we prepared our network systems to cope with it. But, unfortunately, some of the receiving countries could not take the unprecedented number of calls that were flooding their telephone networks," Mulheim said.

He added that some of the countries which could not cope with the heavy flow of calls included India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

He explained that Bangladesh could take only 20 percent of calls that come through its international gateway. "And there are more than a million Bangladeshis in the Kingdom," he said.

He also said that there was no shortage of STC SIMs in the market. "We have supplied adequate stocks of SIM cards to meet the demand and STC subscribers can continue to enjoy this offer," Mulheim said.

Since the promotion started, subscribers from the subcontinent and the Far East began availing of the offer from midnight on Saturday. Those were the lucky ones who got a lot of mileage for the five-minute charge. But, as the network got overloaded, people found it difficult to connect. The worst affected were subscribers from the subcontinent. People telephoning Middle Eastern and Western countries found it easy to get through.

Many in the Filipino community also complained about most of their calls to the Philippines not going through despite repeated efforts. Bong, a scanner in a printing press, said: "I heard of the promotion, but when I tried to make calls home it did not materialize." Nelia, a Filipino businesswoman, said she spent at least an hour trying to contact people overseas but failed.

Pakistanis also complained. "I have been trying since Sunday to reach my aunt in Karachi, but all my efforts ended in silence or a buzz indicating that the network was busy," said Juhi Raza, a student.

"Since the promotion started, it took several hours to get in touch with my relatives in Lahore," said Taher Mustafa, a secretary in a private firm and i spoke for about 37minutes.

A mangalore indian salesman in dammam said after trying for an 2-3 hours he get the line and spoke to their home country india for abour 92mins an hence the battery of the mobile ha switch off.

Some users, however, said they were lucky to connect in the very first attempt. "I spoke to my business partner in India's western state of Gujarat for about 45minutes, but when I wanted to call again I failed," said Khaled Al-Ghamdi, a Jeddah businessman.

Although the promotion is a boon for expatriates to speak to their families and friends at a cheap rate, the frenzy of calls have hit regular callers, especially those who have family back home. It has forced some to switch to the other two mobile operators in the Kingdom to stay in touch.