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Mobily buys data provider |
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on Thursday, 20 September 2007
Saudi mobile phone operator Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) said on Wednesday
it agreed to buy 99.9% of local data provider Bayanat al-Oula for 1.5
billion riyals ($400 million).
Bayanat
is one of two firms licensed to deploy a WiMax wireless Internet access
network in the kingdom, a Mobily spokesman said. "We want to develop
our data services," he told Reuters.
Mobily, in which Emirates
Telecommunications is the main shareholder, has made the development of
broadband and data services a priority to maintain profit growth as
competition is set to heat up further with the arrival next year of a
third mobile phone operator led by Kuwait's Zain.
Bayanat al-Oula for Network Services signed a $100 million contract
with Samsung Electronics to deploy the largest Mobile WiMax network in
the Middle East, according to a statement issued in January and posted
on Bayanat's Web site.
"Bayanat will start operations in the
fourth quarter of this year," a Bayanat official said, adding that
commercial services will be launched first in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam,
and Mecca.
WiMax - seen as the big brother to the WiFi standard,
which only work near to a transmitter - allows anyone with a WiMax
enabled laptop or media device to download songs, movies and business
presentations over distances of up to 50 km (30 miles).
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