Telecommunication In The United Arab Emirates

Definition

• Telecommunication is the exchange of information over significant distances by electronic means.

• It includes: Voice, video, and Internet communications services.

Introduction• Fostering telecommunications is a major part

of UAE Government strategy, main component of public infrastructure.

•Today, telecommunications across all platforms in the UAE are fast and effective with fixed-line, internet and mobile connectivity among the best in the world.

• The UAE’ telecommunications sector is regulated by the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and is presently

serviced by two telecommunications operators, Etisalat and du.

Telecommunications Regulatory Authority

•The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the United Arab Emirates

(UAE) has been established according to the UAE Federal Law.

• It was established in 2003

• It was established to ensure sustainability, competitiveness and transparency among the service providers, customers and shareholders.

•TRA is responsible for the management of every aspect of the telecommunications and information technology industries in the UAE.

•Organizational objectives of TRA are derived from the UAE Telecommunications Law.

Board of directors at the TRA

Chairman, TRA Board of Directors

H.E. Mohamad Bin Ahmad Al-Qamzi

Objectives of TRAEnsuring adequacy of telecommunications services

throughout the UAE.

Ensuring quality of service and adherence to terms of licenses by licensees.

encouraging telecommunications and IT services within the UAE.

resolving disputes between the licensed operators

establishing and implementing a regulatory and policy framework; promoting new technologies.

developing the country’s human capital; and encouraging research and development.

Powers of TRA

• Overseeing the telecommunications sector and licensees to provide telecommunications services.

• Monitoring competition in the telecom sector

• Approving telecom equipment.

• Managing radio frequency.

• Issuing regulations and policies governing the importation, use and dealing of telecommunications

equipment.

•Developing the telecom and IT sector through launching initiatives aiming at

serving the society at large and the sector in specific.

• Issuing the required authorizations to use spectrum frequency and wireless

equipments.

Changes in UAE telecommunication

•Since the inception of the TRA, the United Arab Emirates telecommunications infrastructure has become more sophisticated.

• It enabled competition in the market by licensing the second telecom operator “Du”, resulted to enhance communications services and offer users with more options and choices.

• In January 2010, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, in keeping with one of its core missions announced telecommunications' "Competition Framework“.

• The "Framework", is the first to be developed by TRA.

•Provides a detailed outline benefiting telecommunications consumers by promoting and protecting competition through preventing Licensees from engaging in activities that may hinder competition in the UAE telecommunications sector.

•Why competition?•Competition is the drive for development,

where it leads to higher quality of services, lower prices and the adoption of latest technologies. It pumps innovation and progress into the veins of the sector.

• In may,2010 The TRA officially launched one of the first non-English top-level domain names in the Arab world.

•That is .emarat (dot emarat)

• UAE is one of the first four countries in the history of the internet to secure an internationalized top level domain name.

•The name will allow people to access websites entirely with Arabic characters.

• It helps to foster innovation and creativity, and provide better branding opportunities for local companies.

• It will open up access to the internet to more Arabic speakers.

Emirates Telecommunications Corporation(Etisalat)

• UAE based telecommunications services provider; currently operating in 18 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

• As of February 2011, Etisalat is the 16th largest Mobile network operator in the world, with total customer base of more than 135 million.

• On 10 February 2011, Etisalat reported net revenue of USD $8.4 billion (AED 31.9 billion) & net profits of USD US$2.078bn (AED 7.631 billion).

• Etisalat has 510 roaming agreements covering 186 countries & enabling BlackBerry, 3G, GPRS and voice roaming.

HISTORY

• 1991 - UAE central government issued Federal Law No. 1, giving the corporation the right to provide telecommunications wired and wireless services in the country, & between UAE and other countries.

• It also gave the firm the right to issue licenses for owning, importing, manufacturing, using or operating telecommunication equipment. This practically gave Etisalat both regulatory and control powers, which completed the monopoly of the telecom giant in the UAE.

BUSINESS UNITS Etisalat incorporates additional non-telecom business

units under the umbrella of “Etisalat Services Holding LLC”. These units support the company's operations & provide services to other operators and organizations, namely:

Ω training and consultancy services (Etisalat Academy),

Ω SIM/smart card manufacturing and payment solutions (Ebtikar),

Ω data clearing house services (EDCH), Ω peering/voice and data transit (Emirates Internet

Exchange – EMI X ), Ω call center (The Contact Centre),

Ω cable TV (eVision), Ω facilities management (EFM),

Ω submarine cable laying services (eMarine).

ETISALAT INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENTS

It is the business unit of Etisalat; operates outside the UAE & manages the

corporation's stakes in telecommunications carriers in

Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, India, Indonesia, Iran, the Ivory Coast, Egypt, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, etc.

ETISALAT UAE

Etisalat UAE is headquartered in Abu Dhabi and includes three regional offices – Abu

Dhabi, Dubai, and Northern Emirates.

ABU DHABI REGION• Etisalat Chairman : Mohamed Hassan Omran.

• Etisalat A/CEO: Nasser Bin Abood.

• Senior Vice President Marketing : Khalifa Al Forah Al Shamsi.

• Group Senior Vice President – Corporate Communications : Ahmed Bin Ali.

• The advanced infrastructure allows utilization of the most advanced technology applications to the UAE market. Its high-speed broadband internet enables users to enjoy multiple high bandwidth applications such as IPTV and online gaming in an integrated single interface for landline, internet and television-based services, providing a truly converged digital home experience to its customers.

INTERNET SERVICES

The number of Etisalat's Internet subscribers reportedly stands at 1.02 million

Some Internet services that Etisalat offers home users include:

∂ 3G Mobile Internet access,∂ Broadband Internet services (Al Shamil

and eLife),∂ Prepaid and post-paid dialup Internet

access.

iZone - a system of Wi-Fi hotspots in

central locations, like shopping malls, restaurants, & sheesha cafes.

iZone can be accessed by either:∆ purchasing prepaid cards (AED 15/hour), or, ∆ if using an existing account with the operator

(AED 3/hour for dial-up account holders, or AED 10/hour for broadband users).

Dial-up and ISDN Internet access services are

billed by the hour, whereas domestic and residential cable & DSL connections have a

fixed monthly rate depending on speed.

INTERNET CENSORSHIP

•Etisalat operates an Internet content filtering system that blocks access to web resources.

• These resources are claimed to be controversial or offensive (i.e. sexually explicit content, certain political and religious websites, proxies) or harmful (i.e. numeric IP addresses, known phishing or malicious websites, botnet command servers).

•The use of content filtering is mandated by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of UAE.

The type of content restricted by Etisalat includes:¤ Pornography, nudity and sexually explicit content.¤ The entire Israel country code top-level domain.¤ Certain media-sharing websites.¤ Anti-Islamic websites.¤ Sites criticizing the UAE (like UAEprison, Arab Times).¤ Anonymous proxy sites (like vtunnel, pzeg etc).¤ Gay and Lesbian Rights websites (such as Gaydar,

Mogenic, etc.)¤ Numerical IP address links (for e.g., http://10.11.1.1/).¤ Voice over IP services providers' websites (like Skype,

Vonage).

Revenue(AED millions)

Net Profit(AED millions)

Fig shows breakdown of revenue (as on Dec, 2010) (Source: Etisalat annual report 2010)

About du

• Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company - legal name; commercially rebranded as du (February 2006).

• Competition in the UAE telecom sector started de facto in early 2007 when du launched its mobile network services ending nearly 30 years of telecommunications monopoly by Etisalat.

• The company invested AED 1.7 billion in 2011 and has a total of 4,993,600 active mobile subscribers, 623,7000 fixed-line telephony subscribers & 127,000 broadband internet subscribers.

• The company has no plans to expand beyond its home market in the U.A.E.

Executive Team At du

OwnershipEITC is owned by : UAE federal government (40%), Mubadala Development Company (20%), TECOM Investments (20%), and public shareholders (20%).

It is listed on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and trades under the name du.

Services>du offers: fixed and mobile telephony,

broadband connectivity and IPTV services to individuals, homes and businesses, and carrier services for businesses.

>February 11, 2007 - du launched its own mobile service with call tariffs almost identical to those of Etisalat, thus eliminating any possibility of price competition between the two providers.

>Subscribers to du mobile services can be identified by the dialing prefix “055”.

Survey results by TRA SERVICE COVERAGE : This parameter measures the availability of service coverage

in the regions. Therefore it measures the network's ability to achieve the minimum signal strength of - 100dBm.

Figure : Coverage Level in *Single Mode (2G) and **Dual Mode (2G/3G) – Year 2010.

*Single Mode: Here the mobile device is locked to the 2G Network (GSM) and not allowed to handover to the 3G Network (UMTS).** Dual Mode: Here the mobile device is allowed to handover

between both 2G and 3G networks based on the received signal from the network.

Criticism

‡ Little real competition; with choice of provider generally determined by geographic location.

‡ du typically has a monopoly on freezones, while Etisalat has a monopoly elsewhere; thus broadband internet provision in the UAE is among the slowest and most expensive in the world, with a current maximum available speed of 24 Mbit/s.

Censorship

ØMarch 2008 - du began selectively blocking VOIP traffic, preventing customers from using the computer-to-phone functionality of VOIP systems.

ØHowever, a specific exemption in the telecom law permits the use of VOIP for computer-to-computer calls, and so it is still possible to access VOIP websites, download VOIP software, set up accounts and use the software to make computer-to-computer calls, both audio and video.

Censorship

ØApril 14, 2008 - du started instituting the same widespread censorship of the web practised by Etisalat. Attempts to access content deemed 'inappropriate' by the UAE censor result in a 'blocked' page.

ØAs well as pornography, blocking includes blogs, forums and news articles that are critical of the UAE, as well as a proportion of sites that seem to be accidentally blocked as they have no obviously controversial content.

TRA annual sector reportUAE Telecommunications Sector Developments &

Indicators, 2007 –2010

STATISTICSContribution of telecommunication sector to UAE’s GDP

2007 4.1%

2008 4.4%

2009 4.9%

2010 5.3%

Fixed Telephony –Number of Fixed Lines

•At the end of 2010,there were approximately 1.5million fixed telephony lines in the UAE. This represents 6% decrease from 2009.

•The number of residential lines between 2009–2010 fell by 20% while number of business lines increased by 7%.

Mobile Service• The number of active mobile subscriptions increased

by2.4% between December 2009 and December 2010.

• Revenues generated from mobile services increased by 3.4% in 2010,from AED17,787 million to AED18,400 million.

• Total SMS messages sent decreased by 9% between 2009 and 2010.

• Total MMS messages sent decreased by 25% between 2009 and 2010

Internet Services –Revenue

• Internet revenues increased by 8% between 2009 and 2010 from AED2,532 million to AED2,733million.

•This revenue growth can be attributed in part to the increasing proportion of subscribers on broadband rather than dial-up packages.

Sources

•http://www.tra.gov.ae/index.php

•http://www.wikipedia.org

•http://www.zawya.com/middle-east/countries/uae/

•UAE Telecommunications Sector Developments & Indicators, 2007 –2010