Company Press Release:
RiyadhAbu Dhabi — The Saudi-based telecommunications group Silki La Silki (SLS) has signed a deal with Landis & Gyr of Switzerland for the development and manufacture of payphones that work on the Thuraya's network.
Signed at Silki La Silki’s headquarters in Riyadh, the deal involves the development, supply and installation of prepaid chip card-based satellite payphones in Thuraya’s coverage area, which comprises 99 markets in Europe, Africa and Asia.
The deal was signed by Abdulaziz Al-Haqbani, Silki La Silki’s chief executive, and John Carmichael, Landis & Gyr’s sales director for the Middle East & Europe. According to the agreement, the satellite payphone service will be operational in the year 2001.
Earlier, Silki La Silki entered into commercial partnership with Thuraya, becoming a service provider for Thuraya’s satellite-enhanced payphone service.
Designed to work mostly in remote and rural areas, the payphone to be developed by Landis & Gyr will provide direct communications with Thuraya’s satellite system.
Speaking on this occasion, Thuraya’s chairman Mohammad Omran said “Silki La Silki is an important partner for Thuraya, and the deal signing for developing Thuraya’s satellite payphone is a major step taken by Silki La Silki towards achieving our mutual goal and provisioning of service in schedule."
He added that payphones are a vital part of Thuraya’s service propositions and is expected to constitute an effective communication solution for individuals and communities in remote and under-developed areas. He also stated that Thuraya’s first satellite would be launched within the fourth quarter of year 2000.
On his part, Silki La Silki’s chief executive, A- Haqbani commented that “Our business alliance with Thuraya for the provision of satellite payphone is one of our major projects. Thuraya is a major project and we are proud to be associated with a project of this magnitude, which aims to expand and enhance telecommunications of the region.
"By signing this deal with Landis & Gyr, we are moving ahead with the implementation of our partnership agreement with Thuraya for the satellite payphone, which we strongly believe will play a key role in enhancing rural telecommunications within Thuraya’s markets,” he said.
Silki La Silki National Telecommunications Co. (SLS) is a leading telecom organization in the Middle East, with its headquarters based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. SLS undertakes turnkey telecom projects, and is a premier payphone service provider in Saudi Arabia and Syria. It is now implementing a major payphone project involving installation, operating and maintaining 100,000 payphones for STC in Saudi Arabia.
Landis & Gyr is a highly reputed Geneva-based payphone supplier with some 2.9 million payphones installed in more than 70 countries. It employs more than 1500 employees worldwide.
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
