A whitepaper has been launched by the Mobile Marketing Association on Rich Media Mobile Advertising.  The aim of this whitepaper will be to educate the mobile marketing industry about the rich mobile media ad units.

The whitepaper will be containing definitions, attributes and examples of Rich Media advertising in the market place. The MMA has created a definition for Rich Media Mobile Ad Units with this document which is interactive or non-interactive ad units displayed on a mobile web page or in a mobile application. It offers the following: inclusion of streaming video content or animated GIF within the ad unit, inclusion of sound, and a richer interactive feature set than basic mobile click-through.

The whitepaper has been created by MMA member companies serving on the organization’s Mobile Advertising Committee including Quattro Wireless, Crisp Wireless, Eyewonder, Millenial Media, Greystripe, GOGII, JumpTap, Medialets, Rhythm NewMedia and The Weather Channel.

According to Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, APAC, MMA, the 2009 Asia Pacific Smartphone market is estimated to be 52 million devices, which indicates a tech-savvy consumer group that wants to get the most out of their mobile experiences. And with the increasing penetration of these feature-rich Smartphones, marketers have now started to increase mobile ad capabilities and provide richer content on mobile devices.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Visitors to Saudi Arabia who roam with Mobily won’t need to dump their mobile handsets and tuck away their home SIM cards. The Kingdom’s fastest growing mobile operator announced this week that visitors can get local phone numbers from Mobily using the same SIM cards they brought with them, and hence can make and receive calls on their own mobile phones, thus eliminating the need for them to use two different SIMs in two different phones, and the subsequent need to buy a second handset. The service is one of many that manifest the competency of the technology the company employs and their compatibility with international standards of global operators.

Along with millions of giveaways, Mobily is working around the clock to help visitors get in touch with their loved ones.
Mobily’s agents in 15 points in local airports, seaports, border crossings and Miqats, as well as in hotels in Makkah and Madinah, show visitors how to select Mobily’s network on their handsets and inform them of the great promotions the company has to offer them.
Additionally, as has become a tradition every year for the company, Mobily launched its annual grand prize for visitors on Saturday – with one difference: now it’s twice as big. Ten visitors, whether here for Omrah, Hajj, business or just visiting, will win SR100,000 each, effectively doubling last year’s combined prizes to SR1 million. The competition runs from the beginning of Ramadan to the end of Hajj. To stand a chance of winning, all a visitor has to do is select Mobily as his or her roaming network through their phone settings. Winners will be contacted and their names published in national newspapers.

Mobily enjoys a great many roaming deals with international operators, so as its subscribers, and visitors, can get in touch wherever they are. The deals also cover such advanced services as Internet connectivity, video calling and MMS, to name a few.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), the Saudi Arabian mobile operator, has reportedly inked MMS interconnection agreement with Kuwaiti-based Viva, a Saudi Telecom subsidiary, whereby both operators’ subscribers can exchange MMS messages, the company has announced. Mobily has also inked an MMS interconnect agreement with Axis, in Indonesia enabling Mobily subscribers roaming on Axis to send MMS messages to their people in Saudi Arabia provided they are also Mobily subscribers.

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Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) launched a high-value roaming promotion Thursday for travellers visiting the Kingdom, according to a statement issued by the company.
Relatives and friends visiting the Kingdom during the Umrah and Hajj season, and roaming with their mobiles will have a chance to win one million Saudi riyals, if they use Mobily’s network.
Once they arrive in the Kingdom, all that travelers need to do is set their mobile phone to roam on “Mobily.”
The promotion, which effectively begins at the start of Ramadan each year, lasts until the end of the Hajj season. Due to the popularity of the promotion, the prize was doubled from last year’s SAR 500,000 to one million riyals this year. Last year, Younes Abdulaziz Khalil Ibrahim won the half a million riyal prize.
What makes Mobily’s network worth roaming on, is the quality of calling on the network itself, roaming charges as
compared to other operators, and the fact that Mobily has excellent interconnect and roaming agreements with
operators around the world, allowing guests visiting the Kingdom the ability to make and receive calls from almost anywhere in the world, send and receive SMS and MMS messages from customers subscribed to almost any operator.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) announced the new price reductions on two models of Blackberry handsets, which are available in all outlets around the Kingdom; the price reduction covers the two models, BlackBerry Bold 9000 and BlackBerry Curve 8900. Both devices support the BIS service which customer could activate at any time.

The new prices will be available to consumers starting from Thursday morning the 20th of Aug 2009. The BlackBerry Bold 9000 will be introduced with a new competitive price of 2575 SR instead of the origin price which is 2800SR, while the BlackBerry Curve 8900 will be 1975 SR instead of 2299 SR.

The new prices of the BlackBerry devices will contribute in facilitating it’s acquisition especially for individuals who needs to communicate all day long with their friends over chat applications like (BlackBerry messenger, Windows Live messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google talk) and up to 10 email accounts could be installed including (Microsoft outlook, MSN, AOL mail, windows live, POP3, IMAP4, Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo email) with an optional BlackBerry email. Furthermore, a variety of social media and networking software clients are available to allow BlackBerry users to have instant updates from their face book and Twitter accounts. (more…)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) announced it had signed a multimedia messaging service (MMS) interconnect agreement with Kuwaiti-based VIVA, a Saudi Telecom subsidiary, whereby both operators’ subscribers can exchange MMS messages.
Subscribers of VIVA and Mobily can now send each other video clips, audio files, pictures anything that can be attached to an MMS message up to a size of 400 kilobytes per MMS.

Similarly, Mobily also signed similar MMS interconnect agreements with AXIS, another STC subsidiary, in Indonesia that only allows Mobily subscribers roaming on AXIS to send MMS messages to their friends and family in the Kingdom provided they are also Mobily subscribers.
The two agreements come as part of Mobily’s plans to facilitate and provide customers with all services that enable them to stay connected with family and friends.

Ironically, subscribers of Mobily and Saudi Telecom, the mother company of VIVA and AXIS, cannot exchange MMS messages despite the technical readiness of Mobily, announced by the company earlier.
Mobily it has MMS interconnect agreements with around 121 operators in 59 countries all over the world to enable its subscribers to use MMS, while roaming, or send MMS to other people living in the said countries.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobily’s 3.75G High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) coverage now always more and more people in the Western region to connect to the Internet, make video calls, or benefit from the world of iphone content, according to a statement issued by the company Sunday.

Close to the coast, expansion of 3.75G coverage included Rabegh, Turban, Al Khormah, Al Muwaih, Haddad Bani Malek, Al Sudairah, Asfan, Thahban, Thuwal, Bahra, more towards the hills, customers in Al Hada, Bani Saeed, AL Kamel, Al Sail Al Kabeer now have speeds that rival those of customers in major cities. All in all, 3.75G HSPA service reaches 326 cities, regions and areas in the Kingdom, covering 75% of the population. (more…)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobily, announced that it has added a number of Northern province’s cities and villages to its advanced 3G network (3.5G and 3.75G) coverage.

The new covered cities are villages included Ja’la, Al Ha’t, Al Khraisha, Al Khota, Al Rawdha, Al Nakheel, Al Ola, Al Faqaly, Amlaj, Beer bin Hermas, Baqa, and Taima. Also Halat Ammar, Dahma, Shari, Wadi Al Fara, and Khasibeh were added to the network coverage, raising the number of cities and villages enjoying 3.5G and 3.75G coverage to 326 locations in the Kingdom.

Mobily has announced lately that its advanced 3G network coverage has also covered many areas or tourism activity, locations of large businesses, and roads with high traffic rate.

Mobily is currently completing the coverage in the rest of towns and villages in the Kingdom so that all Mobily customers connect the world from anywhere in the Kingdom through high speed wireless internet, provided either the enhanced CONNECT, or through mobile handsets, or iphone devices.

Customers can also enjoy watching TV channels, and communicate through voice and video (video calling) while roaming as well.

Mobily operates the largest 3G network in the Middle East and its network is considered as one of the busiest networks in terms of data transfer which sometimes hit 40 Terabyte daily which made the company enhance its network to meet the increased demand on 3G services.

Mobily has completed coverage of over 80 percent of the inhabited areas in the Kingdom despite the short period since it was launched for the first time in 2005.

For more information, please visit www.mobily.com.sa/

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Etisalat today announced its Group consolidated financial results for the first half of 2009 revealing a net profit of AED 4.593 billion. The net profit for the same period in 2008 was AED 5.045 billion which included profit on sale of shares in Mobily of AED 892 million after federal royalty. Excluding this exceptional item, the net profit after federal royalty for the six months ended June 2009 is AED 440 million (11%) higher than the same period in 2008.
Etisalat recorded net revenues of AED 14.744 billion for the first half of 2009. This shows an increase of 10% compared to the first half of 2008 (AED 13.408 billion). Total assets recorded were AED 67.245 billion, an increase of 7% (AED 62.918 billion) compared to last year’s total. Earnings per share for the first half of 2009 is AED 0.64 against AED 0.70 (AED 0.58 excluding exceptional item) for the same period in 2008. (more…)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) now covers 326 cities with its 3.75G network, towns and areas, according to a statement issued by the company Friday. In the statement, Nasser Al Nasser, Mobily CTO said the company had expanded coverage in areas already covered and added 118 additional sites over the past three months. Most of the new areas covered will serve large corporations and tourists, among them, the King Abdullah Economic City, the towns of Dherma, Jo, Aletteyan, Alquaweh, Aba Alwarood, Albatra, Aljafara. Other areas include Al Shathou, Qebeyan, Balqarn, Altwal, Alhanakiah, Alkhshaibi, Alhaditha residential area on the border, the public residential area in Alahsaa. (more…)