Saturday, Oct 29, 2016

Muscat: Oman’s elected Shura Council will summon on Monday the heads of the two major telecom companies, which are the target of a mass boycott campaign to protest prices and quality of services, Gulf News has learnt.

Hamood Al Yahya, a Shura member representing Dhank province and chairman of the council’s Services Committee, told Gulf News on Saturday that the council will discuss with telecom companies the issues regarding their services, poor telecommunication networks in many areas and seek cheaper internet packages.

Al Yahya added that the council is standing by the demands of nationals and residents who have launched a campaign on social media platforms calling for a boycott of telecom firms in the country.

Al Yahya said it will be a closed-door meeting in the Shura Council building. However, social media users have demanded transparency and have called for the telecast of the meeting on Oman TV channel.

The telecom firms — Omantel and Ooredoo — are under intense pressure after a boycott launched on social media by customers protesting against the high prices and low quality of services. The two-hour boycott, which required a shutdown of all telecom services, started on October 10 and it runs between 4pm and 6pm every day.

Mobile phone users were requested to switch off their phones or put them on flight mode.

The hashtag launched by the campaigners, “Boycott of Omantel and Ooredoo”, was the top trending hashtag in the country on Twitter for more than a week.

Al Yahya and some other Shura members joined the boycott campaign.

Many customers were encouraged to join the boycott, said Ahmad Al Beloushi, an economic expert.

“The campaign to boycott the telecom firms was well-organised and was happening for the first time in the country, and had put more pressure on telecom service providers every day since then,” said Al Beloushi.

State-owned Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) is the primary service provider in the country, and Ooredoo, majority owned by Qatar Ooredoo, has fewer subscribers.

Many mobile phone users complained about poor internet package offers provided by the telecom companies, high call rates and blocking of internet calling services. Thousands of users had also unfollowed Twitter accounts of the two companies to put more pressure on them.

Campaigners also used other social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp, which had gone abuzz with boycott messages and videos, calling on everyone to boycott the telecom firms.

Omantel’s net profit for the first six months of 2016 was 66.8 million rials (Dh634.91 million), 9 per cent higher than the 61.3 million rials it made in the corresponding period last year, while Ooredoo Oman’s net profit increased to 24.9 million rials in the first six months, compared to 22.2 million rials during the same period last year.

By Fahad Al Mukrashi Correspondent

Gulf News 2016. All rights reserved.