Etisalat, du to boost sharing capacity

New initiatives to share infrastructure for TV and internet services between the UAE's two telecoms providers are being developed which will allow for more balanced competition, heads of Etisalat, du, and the Emirates' telecoms watchdog said today.

Speaking at the GITEX exhibit in Dubai, Ahmed Abdulkarim Julfar, CEO of Etisalat, Osman Sultan, chief executive of du, and Mohammed Al Ghanim, the director general of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), spoke about the challenges in giving both operators better access to customers.

"With regard to duplicating the infrastructure where we allow du to get into the rest of the Emirates and Etisalat to get into the free zones, we are still working it out, because that is going to be a waste of money for both operators and for the country," said Al Ghanim.

Both companies retain monopolies for TV and internet services in certain areas of the UAE.

Du says it has restricted access to more than 90% of the UAE's telecoms infrastructure for these services, while Etisalat says it is restricted from operating in the UAE free zones, which are operated by du major shareholder, Telco.

"The first issue is the unbundling of the Etisalat local loop, which basically means reprogramming the entire Etisalat nationwide network in order to allow du to have access to certain points of the network," said the head of the TRA.

One option to solve this is having a shared infrastructure between the two, as has happened in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), said Al-Ghanim.

However, the head of the TRA also said that in many cases sharing infrastructure had not been successful, citing moves by the European Commission in this regard.

Du said that though it has signed an inter-connection agreement with Etisalat, it is very difficult to access over the 90% of the market because the infrastructure is owned by Etisalat.

"If we want to talk about the reality of offering internet and TV services, it's about the critical issue of having access to customers. Today, we do not have access to more than 90 per cent of the territory - it's because it's not our infrastructure," said Sultan, du's CEO.

Etisalat said it would work to provide better access to its infrastructure to du.

"If there is any new law or a new directive under the TRA, whether it is to unblock the local loop or to share the infrastructure, we will be obliged to provide those services," said Julfar, Etisalat's COO.

About the clipping of its own wings, Etisalat said it has been difficult to offer services to its clients in the free zones.

"With regards to having access to free zones to provide Etisalat services, we have been able to find a few of them," said Julfar. "Maybe we have not got to the level where it is easily to implement for all customers."

Du said it had no objection to allowing Etisalat into the free zones like Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City.

"We will not make any obstacle for Etisalat to come and provide services," said Sultan, stating there was already an inter-connection agreement between the two in place for this.