One major mobile company in Saudi Arabia is refusing to implement a decision by the country's telecoms watchdog to end a bar on charging a roaming premium on incoming calls made abroad from Saudi registered phones. The Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) recently took a decision to end the free service, but Mobily refuses to do so, in contrast to its rivals Saudi Telecom and Saudi Zain. A Mobily official said that the company adheres to all the CITC's regulations, but said that it could not be forced to end the free service. There was nothing in the CITC regulations that prevented it from offering the free service, said Hamoud Al-Ghubaini, Mobily's Vice President for Communications and Public Relations. He said the company was acting in the interests of consumers. Shoura Council members also appear to differ over the issue. Dr. Sa'doun Al-Sa'doun, Deputy Chairman of the IT and Communications Committee at the Shoura Council asked the CITC to explain its decision, stressing that it was in the interest of consumers that the service remains, unless there was a genuine reason to end it. He called on the CITC to conduct a study before stopping the service. However, Muhammad Abu Saaq, another member of the Shoura Council, described the CITC decision as positive because it is linked to international laws for companies. Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Ja'fari, the CITC's Governor declined to comment on the reasons that led to the commission's decision for stopping the free service. He told Okaz that the Commission would address Sunday a press conference at the CITC headquarters in Riyadh to explain the reasoning behind the CITC's decision. If implemented, the CITC's decision is likely to affect thousands of people who are clients of the three mobile companies. Some people have viewed this as a basic service and as an incentive to subscribe to these companies. The CITC wants a rate to be fixed for the reception of roaming, at half the cost of an international call from Saudi Arabia. Muhammad Al-Faraj, Director of Media Affairs at the CITC said the decision was issued at the beginning of January 2009. He said the decision to stop the service was purely for organizational reasons and had nothing to do with commercial profits. He said the security and economic aspects of this decision was more important. Engineer Ismail Fikri, the Executive President for Operations at Zain said the company was committed to enforce the commission's decision effective from Saturday Feb. 13, 2010.
