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Tips on an expat's digital life in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Nozbe

Friday, October 26, 2007

DSL in the Kingdom

Broadband connection charge in the Kingdom, though not yet reasonable, are coming down significantly. The company I work, subscribed DSL from Nesma internet for a hefty monthly charge of 1,800/- SR per month for a speed of 512K. Recently they agreed to reduce it to 1200/-.

When quote from other companies were invited, they are willing for even 700 SR for 1Mb (cyberia if I recollect it right).

These rates are for corporate clients. They include a static ip and few other extra features. For individuals, every ISP currently are offering DSL cards which are quite cheap and affordable. There is additionally a fixed charge from STC for DSL. It varies from SR 90 up to 300 for speeds from 64K up to 4 Mb. STC site has very detailed and impressive description of the services.

Setting up DSL using the DSL cards are quite easy. Even for upto 10 users, internet can be made available for as low as 200/- SR per month (@ 256K speed). I tried both the Awalnet and cyberia cards. Awalnet used to get disconnected quite often while cyberia seems stable comparatively.

The steps I followed:
1. Request STC to enable DSL for the telephone line you chose.
2. Buy an ADSL router from the market. There are many and I have tried speedtouch (vert basic features), Netgear and linksys. My favourite is linksys THOMSON TG585 v7 for now. The web interface is quite easy and features are good.Just connect the device to power, lan and the dsl enabled telephone line, goto its web interface through any machine in you lan, (there is a default ip for the device), set the user id and password mentioned in the card you bought and click on connect and you go!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

DSL prices really going down, Im using sahara.. 256 card was 150sr 1 month ago.. now for 150sr i can get 512kb..

I dont know about other ISP but Sahara seems to be slower than Awalnet. I use Sahara in Office and Awalnet at Home. I compared them every now and then on weekends when to one else is on Office.

Rafeek said...

I think the STC shamil offer is the cheapest I saw.
Speed Monthly Charges
128 Kbps 180 SR
256 Kbps 180 SR
512 Kbps 270 SR
1 Mb ps 350 SR
2 Mb ps 590 SR

I discussed the same with one of my friend and he discouraged me like anything for he tried shamil some 2 months back. He applied through stc online and everything was professional - he received sms time to time updating him the status and finally received his user id and password. Though everything until then went smooth, once he tried connecting, all his good impressions vaporised. It won't connect. He made around 20 calls to STC, even a technician came (yeah of-course 'pare', a nice philippino), tested everything but couldn't solve the problem. At the end, that is when he received his STC bill, there were no mistake. He is charged! for the service he was not able to use and they were not able to fix!

He has to say this: If going for STC, and if it works, very good. If not, you are in for a nightmare. There technical support is too good to be of any use. Probably they have too many customers and we may be too small for them :)

But whatever, I am gonna soon test it myself with a 2Mb connection in 1 or 2 weeks time. And be sure, I shall let everyone know the results. So keep watching:)
-Rafeek

josh said...

I have the same experience with Afaq DSL Shamil - they are eagerly chasing new customers, but once they have your money, they won't make an effort to actually get your internet working no matter how many times you call.

I'm just waiting for a competitor to AlHatif to start up. After all, AlJawal only started giving good extra services after Mobily and Zain came on the scene.

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Anonymous said...

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About Me

Surviving in Riyadh since 1993! Love to see smiling faces around and beyond! Contributing my tiny share around!