arabia.com provides Internet access in Saudi Arabia

This service is the fruition of the strategic cooperation with 'Atheer' the Leading Saudi ISP and technical partner in the deal. The prepaid card is part of strategic relationship between arabia.com, the Arab Worlds' leading portal and Atheer, the leading ISP provider in the Kingdom to facilitate broader use of the Internet in the country.

arabia.com which already enjoys a top position in the Arab website stakes is now aiming to secure a similar position in the ISP market. Ramzi Zeine, CEO of arabia.com said "Through our website we have witnessed the immense popularity of the Internet in Saudi Arabia. We have a regular audience of around 1 million from within the Kingdom and we are now making it even easier for them to gain access to their favorite website via our new prepaid Internet cards"

Prepaid Internet access cards have been gaining in popularity in the Kingdom where post-paid accounts are not available, and people shy away from either committing to yearly subscriptions or using their credit cards to guarantee the subscription.

"We are constantly reviewing and updating our website in response to our customers needs and requests", said Zeine. "By providing ISP access we are demonstrating that we are also thinking about our customers on a much broader scale than just the content of our website".

To use the prepaid cards users will dial the number indicated on the back of the card and logon to the service via the user-id and password that appear after scratching the silver areas on the back of the card.

The prepaid card will come bundled with a free CD containing a range of software, most notably arabia.com's interoperable messenger service 'Mersal. 'Mersal' is arabia.com's instant messenger featuring an Arabic English bilingual instant message system, which is fully interoperable with Yahoo and ICQ as well as 'Wanees' a multi media bi-lingual media player.

Rashid A.H. Al-Snan, Executive Director of Batelco Jeraisy Ltd who operates Atheer said "We are delighted to be working with arabia.com and see this as the first initiative of our new strategic relationship. We recognize that Internet usage in Saudi Arabia is increasing rapidly and we are keen to support that growth".

According to Arab Advisors, Saudi Arabia currently has 1.6 million Internet users.