Smart targets OFWs with new Saudi service

this story was taken from www.inq7money.net
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Posted: 0:21 AM Apr. 17, 2006
Daxim L. Lucas
Inquirer

Published on Page B1 of the April 17, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

WIRELESS network Smart Communications Inc. said it has widened its international reach as it launched its roaming services in Saudi Arabia.

The new deal between Smart and Saudi-based Mobily (Etisalat) is expected to benefit the close to half a million overseas Filipino workers employed in the kingdom.

"Starting April 16, 2006, Smart's more than 20 million prepaid subscribers may use their cell phones in Saudi Arabia and make voice calls to friends and loved ones in the Philippines," the company said in a statement.

Through its partnership with Mobily, the leading mobile services provider in Saudi Arabia, users of Smart Buddy, Talk 'N Text, Smart Kid Prepaid and Addict mobile prepaid (AMP) may avail themselves of roaming services while in the Middle Eastern country, it added.

According to the company, the new roaming services were made possible through the Customized Applications for Mobile Network Enhanced Logic (Camel) solution, an adaptation of the intelligent network standards for GSM, which Smart uses for its prepaid international roaming service.

"Now, our prepaid subscribers who travel to Saudi Arabia can keep in touch with their loved ones back home with ease," Smart's wholesale business group head Roger V. Quevedo said.

He added that the company was also intent on further expanding its international reach in terms of roaming services.

"This is just the first," Quevedo said. "We're committed to bringing this latest roaming technology to more countries very soon."

Quevedo added that Camel would be available to the other Middle Eastern countries in the next few weeks, helping the company tap other markets which are heavily populated with OFWs.

Smart prepaid subscribers roaming in Saudi Arabia can make a call by dialing the phone number as they would while in the Philippines, using the international dialing format, which is to key in + < phone number>, and press "call."

"Smart's system employs a very simple procedure, unlike other prepaid international roaming alternatives, where customers have to remember long strings of digits and confusing sets of procedure," Quevedo said.

The company, a unit of telecommunications giant PLDT, has 20.4 million subscribers on its network as of end-December 2005. It has existing partnerships with more than 180 countries for its international roaming services.