Al-Watan newspaper

DO not know how long telecom companies in the Kingdom would continue their poor services. I cannot understand the reason for their continuing shabby Internet and package services.

The strange thing is the increase in charges every now and then giving various reasons and justifications. Sometimes they say the reason lies in service subscription while some other times they blame it on activation of certain services, thus making common people confused!

Subscribers continue to wonder at high charges for data packages. The charges for 1 GB data is SR70 and if you want to double data they will go up to SR100! The strangest thing is the high charges for external calls and receiving calls from abroad. It has reached such an extent that one cannot imagine such exorbitant charges.

Although mobile phone service in the Kingdom started about 20 years ago still there are some roads, townships, villages and residential districts that are not covered by cell phone networks!

Telecom companies announced 4G services long time ago and the world has moved to the advanced fiber-optic services but residents in many villages, townships, cities and districts still suffer due to absence of these communication networks and they still depend on 2G network, which provides slow Internet services.

It is unfortunate that 4G services are unavailable even on some main roads in the country. There are subways where you cannot get any mobile phone coverage. Moreover, telecom networks in some neighborhoods across the Kingdom operate under heavy pressure with poor Internet services due to lack of enough capacity.

Citizens continue to complain about poor and low quality telephone and Internet services but authorities keep mum and do not take any punitive action against negligent telecom companies.

Recently the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) urged telecom companies to provide user notification service when making outgoing calls outside the network. It will enable the user to distinguish between outgoing calls in and outside the network, but the companies did not provide that service.

I would like to emphasize here that the CITC has not lived up to the expectations of citizens as it did not realize their hopes and aspirations. Telecom companies often receive its support, especially to increase charges. We have seen companies hiking charges for external calls and I don’t know its justification?

The commission’s stand toward citizens’ complaints is not satisfactory and disappointing. Service providers are required to extend telecom services in areas specified in the license agreement. When companies fail to fulfill the conditions, it’s the CITC’s duty to force them to extend the services as per the agreement and punish them.

The commission has earlier announced that it had monitored irregularities in some packages and promotions and it asked telecom companies to correct their mistakes and provide balanced packages. Here, I would like to advise the commission to conduct a referendum on whether or not the subscribers are happy with these packages, which give a lot of room for cheating!

Telecom companies give different reasons for poor services. But the main reason is their failure to extend services as per the standards and qualities set by the commission and it’s the duty of the CITC to make the service providers correct the situation.

I have personally examined the poor services being provided by telecom companies and wondered why the CITC was not allocating a three-way phone to receive complaints or open a window for complaints on its website to address customer complaints quickly.

The suffering of people is on the rise and their complaints are on the increase but unfortunately they don’t get the response they deserve from telecom companies and the regulator.

Can we expect an urgent and strong action from the commission to end the suffering of customers and improve services of telecom companies, realizing the hopes and aspirations of the public?