MUSCAT: Nawras mobile customers in remote interior areas of the country are having a tough time getting in touch with their loved ones since last week, following Oman Mobile cutting off the national roaming network facility for Nawras. This follows expiry of the five-year agreement between the two to share the national roaming network.

“Nawras’ agreement with Oman Mobile to share coverage is coming to an end. As a result, starting on July 21, you may experience changes in our coverage in small areas of the country. Nawras regrets any inconvenience caused and will continue to extend our coverage across the country,” said Nawras in an internal communication to its employees. This statement was e-mailed to customer service executives to answer queries from users of Nawras service.

Oman Mobile severed its network facility for Nawras mobile connections after the expiry of the agreement on July 21. Following this, many people who live or work in remote areas are facing problems as they “lost the most convinient way of contacting families and friends”.

A Nawras spokesperson told Times of Oman, “National roaming (NR) refers to an agreement among operators of the same country to use each other’s networks to provide services in specified geographic areas. Nawras has had an NR agreement with Omantel since the middle of 2005.

“The geographic areas where NR was provided have been gradually declining since then as Nawras has constructed its own network to cover 96 per cent of the population.

“At the time, Omantel made the decision to switch off the national roaming arrangement. Nawras was only using Omantel’s network to cover an additional one per cent of the population.”

Roaming agreement

The official added that recently, Nawras has been discussing on continuing the national roaming agreement with Omantel. In fact, Nawras suggested for a mutually beneficial bilateral NR agreement in which Nawras would open its own network to Omantel customers, allowing them to benefit from Nawras’ network in areas where Nawras’ coverage exceeds Omantel’s coverage.

“The agreement would also provide network redundancy in situations where one network experiences trouble or in emergency situations such as natural disasters.

“Furthermore, this approach would have the benefit of reducing the number of required base stations, thereby lessening the environmental impact of tower construction and supporting the
beautification of the Omani landscape.”

He added that this approach is supported by Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), which has tried relentlessly to encourage operators to share infrastructure for the benefit of the telecom industry as well as the country.

However, at this stage, Omantel is not interested in pursuing such initiatives and on July 21, 2010, they unilaterally decided to discontinue the provision of national roaming in the remaining geographical areas, with some exceptions where TRA mandated continued service.

Network coverage

“However, since Nawras has extended its network coverage continuously since the launch of its services, the impact of Omantel’s discontinuation of NR did not have a major impact on Nawras or its customers.

“Less than two per cent of Nawras customers have recorded even occasional use of the NR network in the last few months, and our estimate is that one per cent of Nawras customers are potentially facing any sort of change in their regular coverage as a result of the action.

“Nevertheless, Nawras was proactive in communicating this news to customers prior to the discontinuation of the NR service.

“We are continuing to talk directly with our customers in the affected areas to make sure that everything that can be done will be done to provide excellent quality services to as many people as possible.

“This will include the activation of several new Nawras sites throughout the Sultanate covering a significant amount of area previously within the NR network.”

Great strides

“Nawras has made great strides in extending its network over the last five years and today covers more than 96 per cent of the population with its own mobile network.

“Nawras values each and every Nawras customer, which is why
expanding our network to cover
the affected one per cent will be a priority to Nawras moving forward,” added Nawras spokesperson.