Zain expands roaming plan for Middle East, Africa

Zain has expanded its One Network roaming plan that lets customers make international calls at local rates. The move brings the service to Middle East customers, and allows some users in that region to call African countries for the price of local calls.

The program was first launched in Africa in 2006 and connected 12 countries including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. This week, the company extended the program to Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain and Sudan.

"As trans-border travels and commerce continues to grow, mobile customers within the one network countries will appreciate the benefit of the service in stimulating economic growth and productivity," said George Held, One Network program director at Zain.

The network allows Zain customers traveling among those Middle East countries to make calls and send SMS messages at local rates and receive incoming calls for free. Customers will also have access to all their home-country services including voicemail, customer care services and balance inquiries in local currency, regardless of the country they are in.

In addition, users in Sudan and the other African countries in the One Network service area will be able to roam and call each other at local rates.

Zain has a presence in 22 countries in Africa and the Middle East providing mobile voice and data services to over 45 million customers in the two regions. Zain is wholly owned by Mobile Telecommunication Company of Kuwait.