STC Expands 5G Network for Hajj Season

Saudi operator STC has deployed its 5G network at 196 sites around the holy sites in Medina and Mecca in order to provide telecom services to pilgrims and local businesses. STC said it will be offering many services, technologies and digital solutions in the Hajj season (9–14 August).

The company also provided 230 vehicles for network technical support, along with 55 maintenance centers and 50 emergency technical teams, working around the clock to serve pilgrims and various sectors operating in the pilgrimage. STC has provided more than 190 service centers across airports, pilgrim accommodations and points of sale, which are equipped with electronic recharge technology, as well as 20 sales platforms.

We have written on several occasions about religiously-targeted promotions from mobile operators, including for the Muslim pilgrimage season of Hajj in Saudi Arabia. However, those have always been plan-based promotions involving free or discounted service packages for the duration of the Hajj, including roaming.

This one from STC represents something different, a major technological enhancement aimed at facilitating communication for masses of pilgrims from all over the world. The extreme density of the crowds at Mecca and Medina during this special event places a major demand on network infrastructure, so investing in building a support structure for it will benefit users while gaining positive feedback for the operator.

While many of the users will not be candidates to be STC subscribers after the Hajj is over, some will, and those could easily be added to the operator’s market share. Beyond that, though, simply advertising its expertise in the cutting-edge 5G technology will constitute an advantage for the operator.

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Nokia and STC Sign Deal to Deploy 4.5G Across Saudi Arabia

Finland-based device manufacturer Nokia and Saudi operator STC have signed an agreement to expand high-speed mobile broadband capacity and coverage in Saudi Arabia, using Nokia’s 4.5G technology. The enhanced network will meet the ever-increasing demands of subscribers across the country, including the millions of pilgrims who visit the cities of Mecca and Medina each year, particularly during the Hajj and Ramadan seasons. Nokia has already completed the first phase of the deployment in Mecca and Medina. Using 4.5G technology, including Saudi Arabia’s first indoor small-cell deployment, STC managed the huge traffic demands during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage, which during peak times recorded an increase in 4G traffic of 600 percent over 2015 levels. Nokia will continue to deploy its 4.5G macro and small-cell radio access network and microwave packet radio technology to provide ubiquitous coverage and faster access to the internet across the country. This will allow STC to launch new services and expand the delivery of VoLTE to more subscribers. The agreement continues a long history of collaboration between Nokia and STC. Nokia has defined a path to 5G that allows leading operators such as STC to take advantage of major increases in speed and capacity where and when they need it using 4.5G, 4.5G Pro and 4.9G technologies.     While 5G technology is in the works, there is much to be said for the promotion and development of intermediate network technologies, faster than 4G, as they can be a major help to MNOs in handling increased data traffic. This example from Saudi Arabia is telling—the country is seeing a tremendous increase in demand on its networks, driven by the surge in travel due to Islamic pilgrimages. A 600 percent year-over-year increase in 4G traffic demands a solution, and STC’s partnership with Nokia is a fitting response to the problem. Nokia’s 4.5G (and even 4.9G) technology will enable the operator to appropriately serve its subscribers and those who roam on its network, while still blazing a trail toward the eventual 5G mobile world. It also places STC in the competitive position of being in the lead in terms of network development in Saudi Arabia. Another interesting point about this example is that it shows how seasonal traffic spikes can be so large as to essentially redefine a national market. Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance. To learn more about Tarifica, please visit www.tarifica.com

STC Offers The Highest Value Plans in Saudi Arabia While Mobily and Zain Tie for Second Place

Tarifica has announced the latest Tarifica Scores for postpaid mobile plans in Saudi Arabia.

The Tarifica Score™ is a proprietary algorithm used to evaluate mobile plans based on the value they offer consumers. It incorporates every aspect of each mobile plan (including usage allotments, geographic coverage, data speeds, value added features and promotional elements) and weighs them against each plan’s total costs to determine its consumer value. Scores range from 0 to 100.

“STC’s Postpaid 400 plans have the highest overall score in both the ‘without phone’ and ‘with phone’ categories,” said Jamie Davella, Tarifica’s Saudi Arabia Analyst. “In the without phone category, STC won because of its faster download speeds, while its with phone plans came out on top in that category because of their lower device charges. Interestingly, Mobily’s best overall plans (Wajid Extra) have more voice and text allowances than STC’s top plan and somewhat lower monthly fees but these attributes do not outweigh Mobily’s slower network speed and higher phone costs,” she continued.

Mobily and Zain are virtually tied for second place in the overall best plans category, scoring 94 and 93, respectively, among plans without phones, and 83 and 82, respectively, among those that include one.

Each operator wins its share of top honors for plans segmented by monthly charge. In fact, Mobily has the best plans in four of these subcategories while Zain wins in three and STC in two, indicating that the market is very competitive. Zain also wins the competition for offering the highest data allotment with its 1 Terabyte Package XTRA plans. Since the Tarifica Score uniformly cuts off all data allotments greater than 10 gigabytes in order to conform to most common usage patterns, plans with this extremely high volume of data did not win in either the overall or price-specific categories.

“In today’s mobile marketplace, consumers are flooded with hundreds of plan variations and constantly shifting promotions and deals—the majority of which come with different costs and services and access networks of differing strengths. When making a decision that will likely impact them for up to two years, consumers can use Tarifica Scores to cut through the clutter and identify those plans in every market segment that offer the best value for the money,” stated Tarifica Program Manager, Will Watts.

Ken Dolsky, Senior Program Director at Tarifica also commented on the market intelligence value to operators. “We see great interest in the Tarifica Score among mobile operators. Users gain access to our proprietary model which enables operators to design plans that score high in consumer-friendliness and value. They are also able to quickly see, in quantitative terms, the impact that competitive changes have on the market. In the case of Saudi Arabia, STC’s best plan scored six points better than Mobily’s best plan among those without phones but when its lower priced phone advantage was included it increased the gap between them to 17 points among plans that came with a device.”

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