JEDDAH – Saudi Telecom Company (STC) continues to consolidate its leadership in the local market by exclusively offering comprehensive Multi-play application solutions in broadband, supported by a vast fiber network, in addition to interactive television service (Invision) and other landline and mobile packages, a specialized research report which was commissioned by Informa, a leader in telecommunication market analysis, said Saturday. The report attributed the spread of broadband services in the Kingdom to STC's role and its ambitious plans to link 500,000 households with fiber optics technology in 2012, and up to 2 million households in 2013. STC's CEO KSA Operations Jameel Al-Mulhem said the company's continuous efforts to keep pace with the emerging technologies has helped promote the company's presence in the telecommunications and IT industry, and enhanced its ability to offer exclusive and comprehensive services to its customers which enriched their modern lifestyle through a bundle of innovative tech solutions, in line with the company's leadership strategy, which was quick to respond to the market's demand for broadband and interactive TV services, enabling STC to achieve impressive leaps of progress and establishing the company as a leader in the Saudi telecommunication market, the gulf's biggest telecommunication market. He added that through striving to consolidate its leadership, STC was able to build a comprehensive infrastructure of fiber optics, marking a new era for broadband services in the kingdom and the region, through superior internet speeds that accommodate customer demand and with a fiber optics network's reach exceeding 300,000 km and links 20 cities and provinces, in correlation with other company projects to link almost 2 million homes with fiber optics technology in 2013, through an ambitious plan that seeks to employ fiber optic networks to serve more than 1.4 million sites in the kingdom with superior and highly advanced services in the next 4 years. Al-Mulhem further said the interactive TV service "Invision" has been a success that impressed customers and enriched the Saudi household with a device that revolutionized the concept of TV viewership in more than 30,000 households, in addition to launching 4G and QuickNet packages, which allow download speeds of 84 up to 173 MB/sec, following a successful coverage of 99 percent of the mobile networks in Saudi Arabia, to strengthen the relationship with its customer-base, through launching several new choices of smart phones, keeping customers posted on all thins new in the tech world, and providing smart packages that meet their demands and choices in accordance with their daily lifestyle and financial ability. STC's services act as a cornerstone in the relationship of trust that exists between STC and its customers regardless of their sector, whether individuals seeking entertainment, benefits and high quality of service, or companies and corporations seeking innovative virtual network solutions, especially with the latest IP-VPN modern applications which were added to contribute to develop the Business sector, he pointed out. – SG/QJM
