Etisalat offers target du customers

Etisalat will offer "triple-play" (TV, internet and telephone) services to over 300,000 customers of du's landline network after regulators mandated interconnection, a senior etisalat official said.
 
Abdullah Hashim, etisalat's Senior Vice-President for Business Solutions, said they are also set to blanket "100 per cent of Dubai" with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology by end-2010, allowing faster downloading of movies, cartoons and playing online games. "We are progressing as planned in Dubai to provide customers with the rich portfolio of e-Life services by the end of 2010," said Hashim.


 
e-Life, etisalat's name for FTTH services, allows customers to subscribe to "triple play" services through a single strand of glass and a single customer account. Mandatory interconnection means that etisalat and du can offer services in each other's areas. "We're able to offer e-Life to residents of New Dubai — the Palm, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Emirates Living, International City and all areas served by du — and vice versa," an etisalat spokesperson said.
 
Explaining the delay in installing e-Life services in old Dubai areas, he said, "Deploying the FTTH infrastructure takes time, resources and skills."
 
Etisalat has invested over Dh5 billion for its FTTH roll-out. The non-profit FTTH Council has reported that the UAE is one of the 20 countries that had FTTH penetration rates of more than one per cent at the end of 2009. The UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority had issued competition safeguards in December 2009 following April 2008's interconnection pricing rules.
 
A Starter e-Life package (download speed of 1 Mbps, which includes TV and internet connection) costs Dh299 per month. The fastest speed for both corporate and home users delivers 30 Mbps, at Dh539 a month. Bundled voice services offer free local calls, caller ID, voice mailbox and 20 minutes of international calls per month.