MTC Touch offers home data and messaging services to Lebanon-based users and
visitors to Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon – 21 December 2006 – Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) and MTC Touch,
in collaboration with the Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications, announced
today the upgrading of the MIC2 network, operated by MTC, to offer new services
to its growing customer base. The announcement came during a press conference
held at the Mövenpick Hotel in Beirut under the auspices of His Excellency Mr.
Marwan Hamadeh, Minister of Telecommunications of Lebanon.
Commenting on the announcement, Roula Abou Daher, chief technical officer, MTC
Touch, said: "We have already launched prepaid SMS roaming services for
Lebanon-based customers while they are visiting Saudi Arabia, and we're about
to make the service available in other countries in the very near future."
MTC Touch will provide its customers with a service package to access their
SMS, MMS, and data services via their mobile phones with a Motorola Global
Applications Management Architecture (GAMA) solution, which seamlessly
integrates end-user data applications and MTC Touch billing, and messaging
platforms.
Abu Daher continued, “I would like to thank the Ministry of Telecommunications
for its collaboration and its recognition of the urgent need to upgrade the
network, thus providing us with the relevant investment to realize this
enhancement. I would also like to confirm that the development plans related to
this expansion have been carried out as per our original timetable."
“MTC Touch will be able to better serve its existing customers through the
deployment of the Motorola solution and services. This will also enable us to
attract new users who may want to send and receive messages, images and video,
and access email and the Internet while abroad. In addition, visitors to
Lebanon will now be able to use wireless and mobile email solutions, web
browsing or other data services they have subscribed to in their home country
and thereby to stay connected when roaming on the MTC Touch network,” she
added.
“Deployment of services that customers really want – such as MTC Touch’s new
roaming SMS, MMS, email and Web connectivity for pre-paid and post-paid
subscribers – is one of the key ways that operators including the MTC Group
enhance end-user experiences in the increasingly competitive Middle East
telecoms sector. The Motorola GAMA solution highlights our ability to enable
the region’s operators to satisfy customers and meet their business
objectives,” said Ali Amer, senior director of sales for Motorola Networks
& Enterprise in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.
About MTC
MTC is the pioneer of mobile telecommunications in the Middle East and now a
major player on the African continent. We began life in 1983 in Kuwait as the
region’s first mobile operator, and since the initiation of our “3x3x3”
expansion strategy in 2002, we have expanded rapidly. As a leading mobile and
data services operator in 6 Middle Eastern and 14 sub-Saharan African countries
with 10,000 employees, we provide a comprehensive range of mobile voice and
data services to over 25 million individual and business customers.
We operate in Kuwait and Bahrain as mtc-vodafone, in Jordan as Fastlink, in
Iraq as mtc atheer, in Lebanon as mtc touch, in Sudan as Mobitel and in 14
sub-Saharan countries in Africa as Celtel: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar,
Niger, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Nigeria.
Listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (Code; Tele), MTC’s market capitalization
exceeded US $14 billion as of October 1st 2006. For more visit: www.mtctelecom.com
www.mtctouch.com.lb
Source: Motorola press release
