June 25th, 2006
12:59 am
Jazar
Batelco which is a Bahraini telecom company, which owns an ISP here in Jordan, has acquired Umniah the Jordanian mobile operator. The value of the deal was 415 US$.
This acquisition will boost the portfolio of the company here in Jordan, after they had the fixed-line licenses; Batelco has grown into a group of telecommunications companies and I believe they will compete with Jordan Telecom group on many levels.
As far as I knew Batelco had the fixed-line licenses more than a year ago and I was expecting to see them entering the market but nothing happened, I’ve attended a conference couple of weeks ago and I witness an aggressive argument between Batelco and Jordan Telecom about this issue, JT has been accused of delaying Batelco of launching the fixed-line service and JT of course defended them self, I enjoyed that fight 
I’ve read in few blogs that Jordanian courts found Fastlink guilty of spying on MobileCom, I’m hearing about this issue since MobileCom started 6 years ago and I thought it is all crap but since it is back to life again seems there is something, I didn’t see anything about it in the newspapers here in Jordan.
But anyway I believe that the mobile operators we have in Jordan are so awful, I remember when Fastlink started in 1995, maybe we were among the first few Arab countries to have a mobile operator but yet it was a really bad experience:
- Very expensive services: The monthly subscription for caller ID was 10 JDs.
- Really bad coverage: Although I live in AlMadina AlMunawah street in a high area in the first floor; not the ground floor nor the basement but yet the coverage was so bad I had to go to the balcony to make a call, I complained many times by calling and filling an application but nothing changed.
- Lack of important services such as the SMS, I think they launched it in 1999, it toke them 4 years to finally launch it.
- Bad customer service: You have to keep calling and calling and putting your mobile on the charger to avoid.
But what happened in year 2000? All of the sudden Fastlink decreased its rates, the caller ID now is for free, they improved their customer service and they started to respect us, but their coverage remained weak, I remember when it failed completely during the snow.
The entrance of MobileCom to the market pushed Fastlink to improve itself, since MobileCom had a stable network since day one Fastlink had to improve its network finally, but MobileCom has the worst offers you can ever imagine, I remember in 2004 they launched a campaign “Beware of qirsh ‘which means shark & one piaster’ this summer” but it turned out to be a complete failure, you can speak for one piaster a minute but under thousands of conditions: at certain time, your credit should be higher than 17 JD’s … and all that crap they but to make you pay more.
The war of prices started and it used to cost you for a minute from one operator to the other more than what it costs for international calls, on another hand Jordan Telecom screwed Fastlink by announcing less fees on calls to MobileCom, which is part of Jordan Telecom group. This is not fair at all, but the question is where the hell the government is!?
Jordan Telecom is a really bad company they drove many ISPs in Jordan out of business for the sake of their ISP Wanadoo, I remember when they decided to decrease the ADSL fees to increase number of ADSL users, Wanadoo was the first to do so and other ISP were delayed so that Wanadoo gets the biggest piece of the cake.
I’m a Fastlink subscriber not that I like them or believe that they are good, but the thing is they all are the same, I might convert to MobileCom if they re-brands to Orange, I like that color 
Who can stop Zionist massacres? We heard this question so many times, but obviously no one can. A shy conviction against these crimes is the best that Arab countries can do. And the worst of all that is the Palestinian – Palestinian conflict that increased the Palestinian sufferance and left the door wide open for the Zionist extravagance to torture the Palestinian innocents without any mercy even on children.
Huda Ghalia a 10-years old Palestinian girl lost her whole family during an Israeli bombing on Gaza shores last Friday, the poor girl lost her father, mother and 5 sisters and brothers most of them are children, Huda became all alone in this world. The shock was so deep; Huda lost consciousness many times during the funeral and was screaming and whipping all the time “Don’t leave me alone” and “Farewell everyone”. Men cried before women specially when the poor child crawled to her father’s grave, kissed it and asked forgiveness from him.
This is not new on the Zionist perfidy which is used to assassinate Palestinian children’s happiness and dreams, and this time it couldn’t bear to witness the happiness of a Palestinian family having a peaceful picnic on Gaza beaches and decided to execute them to add another stain of sham in the history of humanity and the United Nations, who are deaf and blind of what is happening in Palestine. And for each Zionist crime negative effect on Palestinian children and this last crime left deep fears in children of Gaza who are scared to go to the beach again. Huda’s tragedy is an added tragedy for the Palestinian sufferance, but will it succeed to awake the Arabian conscience? Will the Palestinian president be able to afford her with love and tenderness after he decided to adopt her? And how many children will need to be adopted in Palestine? “Don’t leave me alone” a screechy from a Palestinian child expresses the tragedy of a nation and the sufferance of all Palestinian children.
June 2nd, 2006
2:31 am
Jazar
