What we suffer from

[Scorpion]

Criticism
The STC has been a target for public criticism since it was part of the Ministry of Telex, Mail and Telephone. Because it was a perfect monopoly (and in part still is), services were overpriced even compared to other countries in the region. Some Saudis began using the GSM networks of countries nearby, most notably that of the Bahraini telecom company, Batelco, due to its proximity to the commercial region of the Eastern Province.

Since Etihad Etisalat/Mobily started business in Saudi Arabia, the STC has become no longer a monopoly in the mobile communication. However, it remains the only provider of land lines and all sorts of non-wireless Internet.

STC is highly criticized for providing slow and expensive internet services with poor reliability as indicated below. It has come under an incredible amount of scrutiny from unsatisfied members of public. Many state that STC is another example of how backward the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains with regards to technology, whereas neighbouring Gulf countries have already excelled in this domain. Some of the main criticisms include:

Slow Speed: 4096kpbs is currently the maximum ِADSL speed that STC provides for home users. This is keeping the kingdom of Saudi Arabia far behind when compared to nearby countries."STC press statment after launching a 512 Kpbs speed DSL service" . STC are recently rolling out a 4Mbit/s service.
Installation Delays: STC installs DSL connections in less than 10 days for some customers, but for many of its customers the wait can last for many months or even more than one year in few cases. Most small cities and many districts of the three large cities have been waiting for the service since it launched in 31/12/2000 with no avail. Definite dates would not be given by the company.
Poor Reliability: STC has demonstrated a bad reliability of its DSL connections as these lines frequently get disconnected for maintenance or troubles.
High Cost: Customers are forced to pay outrageous fees to STC in addition to the payment provided to internet service providers. STC receives payments from home users, companies, government institutions, internet service provides, and KACST (the main service provider in Saudi Arabia).
Dialup home users pay SR3 ( $0.8 ) per hour of usage. That is, SR72 ($19.2) for 24 hours of usage."STC dialup price page"
DSL home users pay SR230 ($61.3)"STC DSL prices site"per month for 512kbps in addition to the normal payment to ISPs.
Most customers are waiting for better services or looking into alternatives to STC. Having no choice, some customers started using satellite connections, which are illegal in the kingdom, to get higher, cheaper, and reliable internet connections. People are begging STC to provide better services with little luck as demonstrated by this web site Say No 2 STC where thousands of people are signing a petition addressing the king in hopes for better services from STC. The web site has stopped activity though (as of summer 2006).

As an example of such outrageous "services", STC began selling SIM cards in the late 90s (for cell-phones) for $2600 with zero minute credits. This is only for the SIM card and nothing else. In addition, they demanded around $1.80 per minute for local calls. For International calls, you will be forced to pay for your received calls as if you were the originator of the call. And as expected, you will be charged with the highest rates. They also demanded around $2600 for setting up new landlines before. The person calling you will be charged as well.

we are Civlised.....
its just 1 company that is sucking the money out of us and we cant do anything to stop it and we are forced to use the Crapy conection they give cuz they are the only onse in our country





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Telecom_Company

[Lan]

Dude! That is horrible...

[Scorpion]

tell me about it...
some of you might not know that i been to a Police station from a morning till 7pm at night for Brakeing an isp Employe after saying
"wtf do you need high speed conection for when the only thing you have to do in the internet is chat".. and i was so pissed cuz of the d/c'd i had in raids so i couldnt hold my temper

[Hic]

I don't know if you noticed, but tuga connections got better in the last year... this was mainly because the company that had the monopoly over the lines stopped having it (another company built their lines from scratch to avoid using theirs) so with competition they had to start providing a better service (they went from around 90% +- of all connections to 60% or less).

All this to say, until someone decides to start their own company to compete with that one you'll kind of have to take it :\

[Scorpion]

I don't know if you noticed, but tuga connections got better in the last year... this was mainly because the company that had the monopoly over the lines stopped having it (another company built their lines from scratch to avoid using theirs) so with competition they had to start providing a better service (they went from around 90% +- of all connections to 60% or less).

All this to say, until someone decides to start their own company to compete with that one you'll kind of have to take it :\

yes and thats what we are hoping for... a new company that would save us from this RIP OFF...

[Grizzi]

Make a revolution then.

[Shev]

What i just hope, that you understand that we hardly can control the DC'es if that happens.

Make sure we're not satisfied when we get such connection problems, and we're really paying that much for this crappy connection. Please just understand us as much as we understand how annoying that would be in raids if we keep interrupting it. Well i appolagize if i had done a DC, but surely it wasnt me causing it.

[Grizzly]

Ye well I know it´snot your fault but it´s hard to see this all whne a DC is a wipe then your judgement gets all clouded.
Ye what grizzi said how bout starting a petition and then building your own isp. I`ll sell ya some nice fiber from sweden and we´ll make a partnership of it. PLus 80% of the cashflow to me and 20 for you and shev to share. SOUNDS LIKE A DEAL!!!

You guys are frigging billionaires or the country atleast so building it shouldnt´be any problem at all. Question does your government have monopoloy over the internet market?

/G

[Bragor]

It does.

[Grizzi]

With revolution i meant take the power away from the king and his henchmen.

[Bragor]

No comment.

[Scorpion]

You guys are frigging billionaires or the country atleast so building it shouldnt´be any problem at all. Question does your government have monopoloy over the internet market?

/G

70% of Saudi Telecom Company.. is Owned By the goverment........