Jordan Telecom on Monday launched the country's first toll-free service and announced that a high-speed data network will be ready next week. As of December 17 the new digital network will cover the Greater Amman area, company officials said, while other governorates will be connected by the end of March 2001.
In tandem with the completion of the first phase of the high-speed data communications network, Jordan Telecom also anticipated cuts of up to 70 percent in connectivity fees for Internet Service Providers by the end of the month. If translated by the ISPs into lower fees for their subscribers, the price reduction should help increase Internet penetration, recently placed at three per cent by an independent study.
The decrease in connectivity fees would precede the fulfillment of Jordan Telecom's announced plans to become an ISP itself by January. “We have two options [to provide Internet services] and we are working on both at the same time,” said chief sales and marketing officer, Olivier Faure. “We can either buy one of the existing companies (ISPs), or create a new [subsidiary].”
Industry sources have revealed that Jordan Telecom — which two months ago launched a subsidiary to operate mobile services, MobileCom — is presently in talks with Global One, the country's first ISP both in chronological and market terms. The two companies already have a strategic partner in common: France Telecom, which in January acquired a 40 percent stake in the Jordan Telecommunications Company, thus giving birth to Jordan Telecom.
“Jordan Telecom is playing a very important role to help us build infrastructure,” Minister of Post and Telecommunications Fawwaz Zu'bi told a ceremony yesterday for the launch of the toll-free numbers. Since he took office in June, Zu'bi has been working on a major restructuring plan, to transform his ministry into an Info-Com-Technologies (ICT) authority with mainly promotional, coordinating, and supervisory functions for the IT sector.
The restructuring plan, applauded by IT entrepreneurs and de-regulation proponents, is expected to be included in an “IT-package legislation” to be endorsed by Parliament in its current ordinary session, to close in March.
“We will continue to supervise Jordan Telecom's operations in order to secure the needed infrastructure,” said Zu'bi, who has earned for himself the title of “e-minister” among the local IT professionals. “With the new high speed data network we should be witnessing a qualitative leap in services during the coming weeks... and we hope that we shall be attracting significant investments,” he added.
According to Jordan Telecom CEO Pierre Mattei, the new network is expected to provide high-speed connectivity (64kb/s to 7Mb/s), high availability, new service quality, faster transfer rate and end-to-end digital connectivity. Last summer, Jordan Telecom chose Alcatel and Cisco Systems to supply equipment for the new network.
The call-free service, available by dialing the internationally used digits 800, “is only the latest of the commitments that we made at the [first Jordan] IT Forum at the Dead Sea [in March] and that we kept,” said Jordan Telecom's Chairman Shabib Ammari.
The Forum, which crowned King Abdullah's efforts to promote and show-case Jordan's IT sector and was attended by more than 100 delegates from global IT giants, came up with a long to-do list for Jordan Telecom, including building the high-speed data network, lowering its tariffs, and activating free-toll numbers. Int@j, the association gathering some 50 local IT companies, has announced that it is planning to hold the Jordan IT Forum II in Silicon Valley, between May and June 2001.
Although IT leaders have declared themselves generally satisfied with Jordan Telecom's efforts to keep up with the “Dead Sea commitments,” the company has recently come under fire for its aggressive advertising campaign. Columnists at the local dailies have blasted the campaign as an unnecessary squandering of funds, since Jordan Telecom is to enjoy exclusivity for the next four years.
Ammari took the podium at yesterday's ceremony to counter the critics. “Not only these criticisms are exaggerated, but they [stem] from the misconception that a company which is a sole operator should not announce and market its new services,” Ammari said. Jordan Telecom's chairman declared his company is spending one per cent of its revenues for the campaign, while similar companies worldwide — including those which enjoy a straight-out monopoly — usually devote two-three per cent of their profits to advertising, promotion and marketing.
“However, to show our customers that we really care about their opinion, we decided to lower the budget for the 2001 advertising campaign to one-third (of the current budget),” Ammari announced. The company, he said, has been relying on the advertising campaign to assert its new image among the public after privatization.
“We do not operate under government procedures any more. We are a private company, and our job is to make money,” Ammari said, adding that “64 per cent of Jordan Telecom's profits go to Jordanians,” through the Treasury, the Social Security Corporation, or Jordanian investors. “By 2004 we must reach the highest possible number of people and create customer loyalty by maintaining quality service. That way we can ensure that our subscribers will not grow anxious for a new operator to enter the market.” — ( Jordan Times )
By Francesca Sawalha
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
