Man these stc news just doesn’t stop coming. STC will launch as Viva. Viva is stc international brand name. STC operates as Viva in Kuwait. Finally someone realized it didn’t make sense to Call it Saudi Telecom and operate in Bahrain.

Customers wishing to purchase Viva number will be able to do so starting on the 8th of January. Customers will have to visit www.viva.com.bh to reserve the number and pay online. Customers will also be able to purchase their numbers from the following mentioned physical locations.

• Airport
• City Center
• Gosi Mall
• Bahrain Mall
• Isa Town Mall
• Seef Mall
• Country Mall
• Lulu Mall
• Jawad Dome mall
• Al Murrjan Comples – Juffair
• Bahrain University
• The Center Mall
• Zinj Hypermarker
• Sitra Mall
• AMA University

Viva will sell number under 4 Different Categories.

Gold Number
Silver Number
Bronze Number
Free Number

More news coming in few days time. Stay tuned.

Criticism, comments welcome in the section below.

Tensions running High, Days coming near all for the soft launch of STC’s Bahrain operations. The proposed date according to my soure is 15th of January. Working on getting in on the action by getting an STC Number.

Anyways as promised here are some more juicy details about some STC’s services.

Budget Control : Postpaid users can specify a limit for their bill. Whats so good about it you may ask. STC will allow you to topup your Line after you reached your defined limit by buying a normal credit voucher from any of the store. All calls made after the top-up will come from the voucher that you use. Kinda like Prepaid-Postpaid Hybrid solution.

Local Number on Roaming SIM : Let just say that you are a visiting Bahrain from any other country. You still have your Home country sim in your mobile phone. As soon as you switch it On, you will recieve an SMS from STC informing you that you have got 1 Dinar Credit along with a Number assigned to you by STC. A local Bahrain Number which will be valid for a total of 3 days. Before the 3 days period you’ll have to buy a topup voucher and use it else the number gets deleted.

To switch your Home country sim card to the STC one you will just have to dial a number like *183# (just an example) and your Sim will register with STC allowing you to make and recieve calls on the local number. Want to recieve and make calls using your Home country number, dial the above mentioned code again and your number switches back to Your Home country number.

Discount based on Location : STC will allow you to register a Location as your base. Based on the Cell tower, you pick a location. Anytime you make an receive calls from the certain location you will get a discount. Anywhere from 20-45%. Amount of the discount is not confirmed but thats the range. For example, You Pick your home as a location and STC will register the cell tower (could also be cell tower triangulation) of that area as your Base location. Anytime you make a call while at home you’ll get a discount. This service will have a monthly charge associated with it.

Family & Friends : STC will allow you to register 5 numbers to recieve discount on everytime you make a call to them.

That is all for now, hopefully will get some more news next week or so.

Comments, complaints, suggestions welcome.

After much Searching around i finally managed to find a person deep inside STC Bahrain who is going to be feeding me some much needed Information. My Source is well connected inside and i have no reason to doubt the Information that he is giving me.

ATM i don’t have much information about the packages or tariffs etc but i have been promised that it’ll be coming soon.

Numbering : STC Bahrain customers will have numbers starting with 33.

Pre Paid : STC will most probably be providing 3 different charging methods for Calls made via prepaid. They will be Per Second charge, Per 20 Seconds charges or Per Minute charges.

 USB Internet : STC Bahrain will have the highest listed speed on the USB Internet stick (e-go, o-net) a whooping of 21.1Mbps. In real life no one is going to get the mentioned speed due to network load etc.

Blackberry : Blackberry service along with handsets will be provided by STC.

3.5G Internet Router : STC Bahrain will provide a router that you pop-in a data sim card and it allows you to browse the Internet etc. Advertisement will say 21.1Mbps but the Router Only supports 7Mbps as opposed to their USB Stick which does support 21.1Mbps.

STC Call Center is outsourced to a company calles Silah (Prison Break anyone). Silah is a company originally from South Africa & London. 67% of Silah is owned by E-Government Authority, another 33 Percent is owned by The Merchants Group Limited which is a UK Based company. 20,000BD as the authorized capital out of which 13,400 is Local Investment and the remaining 6,600 is Outside Investment.

That is all i have for you guys, stay tunes more is coming.