Etisalat - roaming price deal

Saudi roaming to cost less

Etisalat has announced a lower roaming rate for two countries – Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It launched its Roaming Alliance initiative yesterday which would offer a special rate for its customers on two of its group networks – Mobily and Etisalat Misr.

According to a press release, the initiative is part of a "strategic Vision by Etisalat to leverage synergies across its group in order to deliver a unique value proposition to its 64 million extended customer base and enhance the appeal of mobile services to roaming customers." The initiative will give customers a "simple, affordable and transparent" rate whenever they roam, taking away the complexity of calculating roaming charges. Henceforth, Wasel Prepaid and postpaid customers of Etisalat who roam in Saudi Arabia through the Mobily Network and Egypt through Etisalat Misr would be charged a flat rate of Dh1.40 per minute for local calls, Dh4.65 per minute for calls back to UAE and Dh1.10 per SMS. In order to join the offer, customers need to switch manually to the either of the two networks. According to Essa al Haddad, Chief Marketing Officer of Etisalat, the launch was just the first phase of its Roaming Alliance Offer.

"We would like to extend this eventually to all our customers across the 16 markets we operate in, apart from exploring roaming partnerships with other operators," he said.

The release said Etisalat was also very happy to support the UAE's Telecom Regulatory Authority in its attempt to provide transparent prices for consumers. The roaming offer complies with the regulator's guidelines on price transparency. Customers can check the roaming rates by dialling "*177#" on their mobile phone.

Etisalat currently has a roaming partnership network that includes 510 telecommunication companies across the globe. This extended network enables Etisalat customers to use their mobiles while travelling to 186 countries.