Vodafone Qatar: The 1st 1000
In: Events | News | Qatar | Qtel and Vodafone | Technology
17 Feb 2009
Yup. Vodafone is actually "giving" 1000 users the chance to be the first to brag about having a Vodafone mobile line. The title is actually misleading; "The 1st 1000". I read about this last February 3 in a newspaper and quickly set an alarm on my phone for it said the the 1st 1000 to register on February 15th, would be able to get a line. For 70 rials (credit card needed), one would be able to get a 700 rial value for national calls and SMS. And so when my alarm set off on the evening of 14th, I stayed and waited till 12 midnight (February 15) and tried to refresh my browser every couple of seconds to see if they updated their site and have me be one of the 1st 1000 registrants. But then I waited. And waited some more till 1:30 a.m. When I woke up at 5:30 a.m., the Vodafone site was already updated and was given the page to register. I did find out that it really wasn’t the 1st 1000 registrants who are given the Vodafone mobile line. It is to be the 1st 1000 of "selected" registrants till the end of the month! ARGH! And with all the people wanting to get a Vodafone mobile line, my chances of getting one would probably about at least 10,000 to 1. And that’s the minimal assumption. And what is the basis of selection? Vodafone says: "Out of all applications, “The 1st 1000” will be selected to represent geography, nationality, age, and gender of all people in Qatar." What? That might lessen my chances even more as they might allot at least 500 of those numbers to Qataris alone. And how are they to base this seletion again? The only thing that I think they would really use on the form would be your date of birth, location, nationality and the box the asks you what it means to you to be one of Vodafone’s 1st 1000 customers (100 character limit).
Still, I typed and registered and still hoping that I get picked get a Vodafone line. What’s about having a Vodafine mobile line anyway? First would be bragging rights. I’m being honest here. I mean, until we get to see any clear difference on the service of Qtel and Vodafone, having a Vodafone line along with your current Qtel line is just twice the cost. I don’t really expect any difference in quality of the voice as Vodafone is riding on the back of Qtel’s network. Also, Vodafone actually has much lesser cell sites than Qtel so expect more dropped calls or low signals for the first months.
There are only two things that make Vodafone a sought after service in Qatar. People are tired of Qtel’s lousy customer service and people want to see if the service is going to be cheaper and better. On being better, I really don’t know what they can offer to make the quality of voice calls better or what add-ons they have on their services that tops Qtel’s offerings. And Vodafone has been quite mum on this. Their PR focuses more on gicing away vouchers and cash, which is a good PR move. People don’t get to think and ask why would they need to shift to Vodafone. Why indeed? This we have to find out in the next couple of months and probably something that Vodafone PR needs to concentrate on.
The thing that is going for Vodafone is that in Qatar, whatever is the "in" thing, people would just gobble it up and won’t mind if they’re paying for another service other than Qtel. Let’s see by next mnth if I’m lucky enough to be one of the "The 1st 1000".
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