RIYADH – Saudi Telecom Company (STC)’s leadership in international roaming services continues, due to its wide network of regional and international strategic partnerships, where it’s considered as one of the largest companies in the Middle East to provide roaming services on land and at sea and in-flight as it covers all the countries of the world. It owns more than 2,000 international roaming agreements that it concluded with many operators worldwide for numerous diverse services, which consequently gives it leadership and excellence and also gives customers the opportunity to enjoy the latest services at the lowest costs. These agreements include third-generation audio video and Internet services while roaming, in addition to international MMS.
STC provides its customers with incoming international call package for foreign scholarship students for the rate of one riyal a day
STC introduced special packages that allow receiving calls while roaming for students on scholarships, as well as for families during the official holidays. STC has provided its postpaid customers with the international call package for foreign scholarship students while traveling and on all networks in 33 countries, where this package provides unlimited incoming calls at a discounted monthly rate of SR30 only (SR1 daily).
Furthermore, STC provided a special package for official holidays which include the end of the school year leave, Eid Al-Fitr holiday, the National Day, Eid Al-Adha holiday, mid-year and spring breaks. This package is characterized by providing STC’s customers with unlimited incoming calls worldwide at a discounted daily rate of SR1 a day. For more details about incoming calls packages, send 6344 code to 902.
The best and cheapest Internet roaming packages at a starting rate of SR1 per hour
STC provided its customers with the lowest and best Internet roaming packages and BlackBerry, which can be renewed while traveling for postpaid and SAWA customers, at a starting rate of SR1 per hour in more than 40 countries around the world. The said packages are on the best networks under strategic partnership with our roaming partners in those countries. Customers can get a list of operators by sending the 6300 code in SMS to 902, where the customer will receive a message containing the packages, rates and subscription code for each package.
The customers have the option to choose between the daily distinctive package that offers 100 MB for SR24 per day, the weekly 1 GB package for SR99, or the monthly package that offers 2 GB for SR250.
In order to profit from the package, the customer has to, after activating it, cut any Internet connection and then reconnect. Customers can also subscribe to more than one package at the same time, in addition to the possibility of renewal while traveling and the use of the package on multi-SIM, and on Quicknet postpaid and prepaid data SIM. The customer is also required to make sure that the package is working in the country by following the schedule on STC’s site: www.stc.com.sa as well as taking into account the importance of choosing the operator manually in order to avoid any additional charges.
The best international roaming rates with STC
STC’s customers enjoy unified international roaming services, which come with a unified economic rate and a substantial reduction of up to 70% in some countries. The seervices brought added value to the company’s frequently traveling customers around the world, while ensuring transparency and rate stability, and where the service exclusively provides itinerant customers with fixed and discounted rates for local calls made abroad or to the Kingdom.
STC was one the first companies to reduce roaming rates in the GCC countries since 2008. Travelers in the Gulf countries enjoy the rate of SR2.49 per minute on outgoing calls to Saudi Arabia, and SR1.03 on local calls per minute, in line with the recommendations of the Ministerial Committee for Communication in the GCC countries.
Best international call roaming packages
STC’s customers, such as students, employees and tourists, frequently traveling to the Kingdom of Bahrain while abroad, profit from rates similar to the rates in Saudi Arabia when they subscribe to “Viva Bahrain” – a package that offers major reductions on roaming rates in Bahrain, and is characterized by providing rates similar to local rates – like 1 minute within Bahrain or Saudi Arabia is set to 35 halalas and SMS text messages are set for 25 halalas, Easy Net for SR2 /MB when subscribing to “Viva Bahrain” package for only SR12 a month.
The company also launched three special packages for SAWA, the prepaid line customers, offering subscribers packages with attractive discounts on outgoing and incoming calls, SMS text messages of up to 80% while traveling abroad.
The first package, “Viva Bahrain”, offers SAWA prepaid numbers 30 minute outgoing calls, 1,000 minutes incoming calls, and 30 text messages for SR25 for a period of 30 days on the condition that the network’s settings are fixed on Viva Bahrain network only. The second package, “GCC countries” package, which is available to all GCC networks, offers SAWA prepaid numbers 30 minute outgoing calls, 30 minute incoming calls and 30 text messages for SR50 for a period of 30 days. The third package “Worldwide package” available on all networks around the world, offers SAWA prepaid numbers 30 minute outgoing calls, 30 minutes incoming calls, and 30 text messages for SR100 for a period of 30 days.
Best international roaming services
STC is characterized as possessing the largest and strongest infrastructure in the region, in addition to being one of the leading companies in fiber-optic networks and submarine communication cables and being one of the main participants in all submarine communication cables linking Southeast Asia, western Europe and North America passing through the Middle East. STC is also noted for having a network and infrastructure for wireless networks, led by the fourth generation network 4G LTE which helps meet the needs of its customers for Internet access and international access lines – maintaining STC’s leading position among other competitors.
STC is ambitiously strategizing to develop and expand its international network in order to meet the growing demand of various telecommunications services and in particular, the needs of Internet subscribers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the region in general, through the linkage with the rest of the world with high quality communication techniques.
‘SAWA roaming’ prepaid SIM card for usage outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
STC enhanced its position at the level of international roaming services with the launch of “SAWA roaming” SIM for the first time in the region and the Middle East, in an effort to meet customers’ needs at attractive discounted rates of up to 80 percent on international roaming services.
This comes as a confirmation of its leadership as the first telecommunication company to adopt a strategy that lives up to the expectations of the international roaming subscribers. “SAWA roaming” SIM is offered for SR299. The SIM can be utilized for more than one trip, which includes SR25 credit, 100 minutes roaming send and receive, as well as 100 roaming SMS, in addition to 5 MB of roaming data.
This service is considered as part of a series of international roaming services launched by STC for its customers traveling outside the Kingdom, and as a further economic alternative for customers in order not to go through the hassle of buying local SIM cards from the country of destination, hence saving their time and effort.
STC customers have the ability to internationally recharge their SAWA prepaid lines in Bahrain and Kuwait
In line with STC’s pursuit to continuously grant its customers high flexibility and enjoyment of its services, whether inside or outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it has provided its customers with the “international shipping” service in the Kingdom of Bahrain and in Kuwait, so that SAWA travelers can enjoy on VIVA network in Bahrain and Kuwait constant communication with family, friends until their card runs out of credit. They can then recharge through the use of recharge cards from VIVA in Bahrain and Kuwait to recharge their credits as if they were in the Kingdom.
The launch of the new service came within a strategic plan for the development of SAWA services and give customers the opportunity to recharge their SAWA line without the need to wait until they return to the Kingdom. Travelers to Bahrain and Kuwait can buy recharge VIVA cards from any of VIVA’s points of sale, and recharge as it is described on the recharge card.
The Bahraini and Kuwaiti currencies are converted automatically to their equivalent at the exchange rate of the Saudi riyal which is BD=SR10 and KD=SR13.
The recharge cards in all their categories have a validity period of three days. Promotional offers do not apply to users of the service, in the sense that the traveler gets the primary balance of the card only without the bonus. In addition to that, all the recharging terms of SAWA customers apply to the “international recharging service.”
STC customers enjoy roaming and international prizes while traveling abroad
Under the international roaming partnership between STC and the leading operators in the world for the purpose of providing its customers with promotional offers when traveling, all “postpaid” and “SAWA” customers who enjoy unified international roaming through cross-network roaming advanced services, also enjoy special offers from operators in the countries where they travel. They are offered many valuable prizes, the latest of which was two STC subscribers winning a diamond worth $10,000 each, for using unified international roaming during their travel through the network “AMINA” in Jordan.
Extreme care from STC to its customers when traveling abroad
In addition to the services and wonderful offers presented to STC’s customers within the unified international roaming network, STC has also allocated a special center for customer service when traveling outside the Kingdom by calling toll free +966114555555 or communicate via e-mail ics@stc.com.sa
Moreover, the center offers a variety of services provided by the 902 center in addition to the delivery service of SIM cards lost while traveling anywhere in the world. This service enables customers to get an alternative SIM in record time. — SG