Qtel to launch unified roaming plan across 17 countries

Qtel Group announced today it will offer a unified international roaming plan across its operations in 17 countries, with the initial phase to be launched across the Gulf next month.

The first phase of ‘SmartRoamer’ will allow roaming customers of Qtel in Qatar, Wataniya in Kuwait, and Nawras in Oman, to benefit from a single rate for calls between the Gulf region zone of Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They will also receive discounts of between 25-70 per cent for local calls, SMS and wireless data services.

The second phase will see the international roaming plan expanded to Qtel’s remaining networks across the Middle East and Asia – Algeria, Cambodia, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Laos, Maldives, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Singapore and Tunisia.

Other operators that offer similar plans include Zain and its ‘One Network’ which allows subscribers across its 22 countries to pay the local call rate when roaming on another Zain network and are not charged roaming surcharges. Bahrain’s Batelco offers a ‘World Freedom’ plan where customers can roam in 21 countries without paying to receive incoming calls.