New mobile operator Nawras lowers tariffs

Oman's new mobile service providers – Nawras – marginally lowered the tariff bar as they entered into competition, in the Oman market yesterday.

CEO Ross Cormack was reluctant to say that Nawras had launched a price war in the mobile phone sector.

"We are not here to trigger a price war," he said. But then he added, "We will have to compete in all areas, including the price."

The new mobile phone service provider has removed distance out of the post-paid service rate.

Currently, an Omanmobile user pays 25 biazas to 100 baizas per minute depending on the distance. Nawras has removed the distance and is charging a uniform rate of 39 baizas per minute for the first five minutes and 19 baizas per minute for the subsequent time.

However, the initial Nawras connection charges for the post-paid service are higher at 19 riyals compared to 15 riyals charged by the established service provider Omanmobile.

The SMS tariff in post- paid services are the same in both the service providers while Nawras are charging 10 baizas for a SMS in pre-paid phones against 10 to 20 baizas by Omanmobile in a similar service.

Unlike Omanmobile, Nawras does not charge extra for additional services like call forwarding, call barring, call id etc.

Nawras has also bundled a range of services free of monthly subscriptions for both post-paid and pre-paid customers.

" Nawras believes that how a customer chooses to pay should not restrict the services that they can enjoy," said Cormack.

The company has also created a new product, a pre-paid service that has features of a post-paid service, as well as introducing roaming for pre-paid as well as post-paid services.

The three Nawras offers are: Nawras Ajel, Nawras Mousbak and Nawras MousbakPlus.

According to Cormack, Nawras service would be available at 450 points of sale and a customer can pay at more than 300 locations around the country.

OMANTEL
Automated payment options available

Automated bills payment options are now available to customers of Oman Telecommunications Company and Oman Mobile Telecommunications Company LLC, company representatives said.

Twenty collection centres have been established across the country for collecting fixed line, GSM and Internet bills. The collection centres are all equipped with software to ensure all payments made by Oman Telecommunications Company ( Omantel) subscribers are recorded instantaneously. The service is available today.

Automated bill payment machines have been installed at Omantel and Oman Mobile Telecommunications Company LLC's (Oman Mobile) centres. Five machines are already operating in Muscat and six more machines will be installed