du has announced plans to expand its Next Generation Network (NGN) to offer multimedia and telecommunication services to its customers across the United Arab Emirates.

“du’s initial success with our suite of converged media and telecommunications services has swiftly created the need for a network upgrade to satisfy current and future demands for capacity, quality, speed and new services,” said Osman Sultan, chief executive officer, du.

The telecom company has chosen Nortel Communication Server 2000 IP multimedia softswitch and Nortel Media Gateway 15000 to deliver ‘anytime, anywhere’ IP Centrex and multimedia services.

The agreement also includes fully managed services from Nortel’s Global Services portfolio, including building and operating the system and knowledge transfer.

Nortel had been focusing on the Middle East for their core networks business for a long time and in an interview with itp.net, Michel Clement, leader for Southern Europe and MEA revealed that they “were not available to penetrate the Middle East market as it was difficult to convince the strong players.” Clement added that their “new wins will definitely open the door to service providers and prove that we are very serious about the market.”