RIYADH – Abdullah Al Sawaha, minister of communications and information technology, announced on Wednesday the lifting of a ban on mobile phone applications effective from coming Wednesday.

Al-Sawaha, who is also chairman of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), the Kingdom’s telecom regulator, said that coordination between CITC and the telecom service providers is underway to enable customers, including citizens and expatriates, to benefit from applications that provide voice and video calls over the Internet and that will be in compliance with the requirements, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The minister said that the service providers have confirmed their commitment to enable all customers to use the applications to make voice and video calls of the highest quality and that they will review all applications so as to meet the requirements periodically.

Al-Sawahah thanked the CITC and the telecom companies for developing their technologies in line with the latest trends in the communications and information technology sector and providing the best services for users.

“This fruitful cooperation between the Kingdom’s telecom partners comes under the umbrella of ‘Customer First’, a policy in which everyone works in order to give all telecom subscribers in the Kingdom the best services that meet their expectations and satisfy their needs,” he said.

This step is an extension of previous steps to raise the level of "transparency and clarity" in the sector, including the recent launch of the quarterly index of the classification of telecommunications service providers on the basis of complaints filed by subscribers against service providers, as well as verification of the application of the user protection document and the commitment of service providers to transparency and clarity.

The Kingdom is considered as one of the world’s fastest growing countries in terms of growth in the use of smart phones and participation in social networking platforms. The average use of the Internet by mobile networks in the Kingdom is among the highest globally, which emphasizes the importance of keeping pace with the growing trend in the provision of networks and infrastructure to the highest quality standards.

The ministry is working with the service providers in achieving the goals within the National Transformation Program of 2020 and developing a digital society in line with realizing the goals of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.