The late King Abdul Aziz, may Allah have mercy upon him, had a vision for the important role of the sector of post and telecommunication and the necessity of utilizing modern inventions of technology in this sector so that all the remote, far-reaching areas of the Kingdom will be neatly connected with each other. To this end, he issued His Royal Decree in 1345 H. for the establishment of a P.T.T. Directorate to be answerable to the office of the Attorney General under the umbrella of the Internal Affairs. Officials in the Kingdom gave all their support and special attention to this sector and its services since then. These are the main phases of the history of the telecommunication sector in the Kingdom:

• In (1353 H.) twenty-two wireless stations were established to connect all town and villages of the Kingdom with the telegraph services.
• In (1353 H.) the number of manually-operated telephones did not exceed 854 lines distributed among Riyadh, Mecca, Al-Madeena, Jeddah and Taif only.
• In (1372 H.) the Ministry of Telecommunication was established. H.R.H. Prince Talal bin Abudl-‘Aziz was appointed Minister of Telecommunication. All P.T.T facilities were annexed to this Ministry.
• As a consequence of the growing significance of the role of telecommunication in the development and advancement of nations and countries, a royal decree was issued no. (A/236) on 8/10/1395 H. for the establishment of the Ministry of P.T.T to be in charge of both sectors of Post and Telecommunication. The number of telephone lines at the time did not exceed 130,000 lines, and the total revenue came up to 250 million Saudi Riyals.

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