Seef District, Sunday, 22nd May 2005 – In maintaining and strengthening its position as the leader of innovative and technological advancements in the region, MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain), the kingdom's most innovative mobile and wireless services provider, has partnered with Mobile Information Services to jointly launch the first of its kind SMS services in the Middle East. Under the agreement, MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain) will provide mobile-enabling technology allowing readers of Al Ayam newspaper, to book their classified ads conveniently through SMS.
“This new service comes as part of our commitment to provide our customers with an extensive range of innovative and unique mobile and wireless services,” said 'Mohammed Al Hashili, Senior Product Development Manager at MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain). “Our objective is to offer the Bahrain mobile users cost effective and time saving value-added mobile services, as well as strengthen our partnership agreements with local establishments and support them to take part in the migration to the new era of mobile communications.”
“We are proud to partner with MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain), a leading telecommunication provider in the kingdom and the region. We believe that people now tend to use their mobile phone to accomplish most of their daily tasks, that’s why we collaborated with MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain) to reach loyal readers of Al Ayam and exceed their expectations”, said Omran Khayami, Managing Director of Mobile Information Service. “The new service, which is in effect, is the beginning of a long partnership relation which will result in a wide range of services under the Al Ayam Mobile brand provided by Mobile Information Service and MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain)“, he added.
This is not the first time MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain) partners with Al Ayam newspaper to offer innovative services. Last December, and during the GCC football tournament, Al Ayam and MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain) offered a number of interactive services in Al Ayam Sport pages ranging from daily competitions to sports information services with a lot of prizes won by participants.
"This is yet another milestone for MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain). Last year, we launched the First LiveTV to mobile services in the Middle East to allow our customers stay up-to-date with the fast-moving world's events. Here we are today, celebrating the launch of Al Ayam Mobile portfolio of services starting with the classified ad booking via SMS, which will help mobile users saving their time and getting their messages across on time”, added ‘Mahmoud Hashish, Chief Commercial Officer at MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain). “We look forward for more publications to go ‘Mobile’ and migrate to the new era of communications", he concluded.
MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain)’s customers are now receiving news and sports updates, they are accessible by e-Mail, surfing the Internet, watching live TV and sharing pictures with friends and loved ones from their mobile phone. Through this new service, MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain) customers will now be able to send their classified ads in Arabic to 66111 by SMS. Then customers will receive an SMS message immediately to acknowledge receiving the message. The cost of this Ad will appear in Hewar customers’ bills, and for the eeZee customers, the ad charge will be deducted from their prepaid account directly.
Earlier this month, MTC-Vodafone (Bahrain) expanded its network capacity to accommodate more than 200,000 customers in the Kingdom. It offers customers the best quality products and services via the most technologically advanced network in the region with 100 percent geographical coverage of 3G and EDGE technology; offering data speeds of up to 348 kbps. These speeds are the fastest in the Kingdom and are amongst the fastest in the Middle East today.
To find out more about the MTC-Vodafone products and services, mobile users can browse the Internet and log onto: www.mtc-vodafone.com.bh or call our customer service center at 107.
