RIYADH: Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Google Saudi Arabia signed a new partnership agreement under which YouTube will be made available to customers on Interactive Television (Invision). At press conference Wednesday, STC chief executive for Saudi Arabia Jameel Bin Abdullah Al Molhem said the YouTube Invision service was being offered for the first time in the Middle East region. "It is a unique service in the region that allows, for the first time, customers subscribing to the advanced interactive television service (Invision) to view and search for videos on YouTube on the internet by using the TV screen at home," he said. "And all this is for free and without having to use the search engines or visit or logon sites and forums," he added. Al Molhem further said "his step comes to reinforce STC's efforts in upgrading and developing Invision service by enriching its content with more unique bundles of modern services that have never been launched before in the market." A visual demonstration showcasing the applications of the new YouTube service including details on the features and benefit of the service and how to access it, in addition to the other customer benefits that will be gained from this new service. Maziad bin Nasser Al Harbi, vice president Home Sector, Arimr Kesisoqlu, director of Google Mena and Abdulrahman Tarabzouni, country manager of Google Saudi Arabia, also took part. Al Molhem pointed out that STC will continue to upgrade Invision service by enriching its content with the best and latest services that go hand in hand with the wishes of its customers. He said the next phase will witness the launch of new modern services such as e-learning, e-shopping which enable customers to perform their purchases and have their purchases delivered straight to their home, in addition to other services. He also revealed that STC will spring a few surprises on its customers this Ramadan. On its future plans, Al Molhem said the STC is planning to invest in the fiber optics network with an aim to connect 50,000 homes to the internet via the fiber. This service will allow speeds ranging between 100-200 mega and will hit 1 giga in the future. Kesisoqlu said "more than 100 million Arabs logon to the YouTube network every day, and about 11 million users go online at an average of 136 minutes per day representing 40 percent of the Kingdom's population." "These users can now enjoy YouTube's visual content via new technologies that no one has beat us to before," he added. Tarabzouni said that YouTube Invision service will create a quality leap as a first of its kind service that will enable Invision customers to enjoy the best search experience. "It will allow customers to go directly on the web and look through all the available video files on the YouTube library while watching and downloading any type of video files that they require whether movies, television series, or any other drama titles for free and at anytime they wish with high speed and quality," he added.
