Saudi Arabia announced recently, that they are lifting the ban from Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) voice and video calling services including Skype, WhatsApp, and Viber effective from tomorrow 20th September.
Abdullah Al Sawaha, Minister for communications and information technology and the chairman of the Kingdom’s telecom regulator, said the decision is taken to enable customers, including citizens and expatriates, to benefit from applications that provide voice and video call apps, according to the Saudi Press Agency.
“This fruitful cooperation between the Kingdom’s telecom partners comes under the umbrella of ‘Customer First’, a policy in which everyone works in order to give all telecom subscribers in the Kingdom the best services that meet their expectations and satisfy their needs,” he said.
The Kingdom considered one of the world’s fastest-growing countries in terms of growth in the use of smartphones, has the highest average use of Internet by mobile networks globally.
With Saudi’s National Transformation Program of 2020 and the Kingdom’s Vision of 2030, this surely seems a step to open up their digital market.
Abdullah Al Sawaha, Minister for communications and information technology and the chairman of the Kingdom’s telecom regulator, said
The decision is taken to enable customers, including citizens and expatriates, to benefit from applications that provide voice and video call apps.
He added: “This fruitful cooperation between the Kingdom’s telecom partners comes under the umbrella of ‘Customer First’, a policy in which everyone works in order to give all telecom subscribers in the Kingdom the best services that meet their expectations and satisfy their needs,”.
The Kingdom because of “regulations” has banned the app’s video and voice chat functions, along with similar service IMO. Now Saudi Government has lifted the ban on these apps.
A few months earlier, the Government of UAE lift ban on WhatsApp calling. But after few hours, UAE Blocks WhatsApp Voice and Video Calling Feature Again. Now users are once again restricted to send text messages, photos, and videos.
The blocking of free calling service is a debated subject in the UAE with a Federal National Council member advocating for a lift in the restriction in the 2016 April session. Etisalat and Du, the two telecom companies in the UAE have also blocked the Snapchat’s voice calling features last year when an upgrade of the app introduced the feature.
The bodies cooperating with the decision emphasized that they will enable everybody to use the VoIP supported applications to make voice and video calls at high quality. The decision is in line with the objectives of the Kingdom’s vision 2030.
