70 APNs from Etihad Etisalat Mobily, Bayanat Al Oula to give Hajjis free Internet

Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and Bayanat Al Oula announced Friday that they had setup 70 WiFi access points in the Holy Sites for use by journalists and the general public.

WiFi, which stands for wireless fidelity, allows anyone with a laptop, PC with a WiFi card or even WiFi enabled mobile phone or PDA to connect wirelessly to the Internet.

In the case of the 70 WiFi access points setup by Mobily and Bayanat, connectivity to the Internet is free of charge.

All that users need to do is set the WiFi card on their device to search for “bayanat.” No extra settings, like an encryption key or an IP address. The connection sets itself up automatically, bringing mobile Internet connectivity into the hands of pilgrims, officials, journalists or any member of the public in the Holy Sites, who needs access to the Internet.

The access points have been setup across strategic locations at the Holy Sites using power from Mobily’s towers.

“These are the first fruits of our cooperation with Bayanat,” said Abdulaziz Altamami, chief operations officer of Mobily.

We gave them access to our towers and have supplied them with power for the WiFi access points at all 70 locations,” he added.

Bayanat, is one of two licensed data communication operators. Mobily and Bayanat, are rolling out a 12,000 kilometer nationwide fiberoptic backbone. The backbone has seven rings.

In September, Mobily signed a memorandum of understanding worth SAR 1.5 billion to acquire 99.9 percent of Bayanat’s shares.

Mobily has consistently provided the best network coverage in the Holy Sites since its launch in May of 2005. This year round, Mobily added 82 new sites, increasing its coverage by 58 percent.

Each year, millions of Muslims throb the Holy Sites to perform Hajj. Pilgrims come from inside the Kingdom and travel from hundreds of countries around the world to achieve the fifth pillar of Islam.

Dec 31, 2007