Two years ago customers flocked to Etihad Atheeb Telecom, which paid USD139 million for Saudi Arabia’s second fixed-line license, bringing to an end a monopoly enjoyed by Saudi Telecom (STC). Now a group of young Saudis has organized a boycott of STC, in protest of persistently high prices and poor service, while the newcomer’s managers complain that fair competition remains a far-off goal. Ahmed Sindi, new entrant Etihad Atheeb’s chief executive, said:
We have a lot of problems with the incumbent operator, and we are not seeing enough actions from the regulator to stop it. We do not have access to critical infrastructure like dark fibre; we do not have access to conduits of transmission between various cities because the pricing is very high; and interconnectivity has been delayed massively.
With a young, rapidly growing population and up to 7 million expatriates, Saudi Arabia’s telecom market is one of the most coveted by local and international companies. But the success of a new player depends mainly on the ability of the regulator to enforce access to existing infrastructure, and in Saudi Arabia enforcing fair competition rules has been weak at best, FT writes.
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