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"http://wwwinformationdelightinfo/information/entry/CEO" class="copylinks">CEO
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United Arab Emirates Government
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Abu Dhabi
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, also known as '''Etisalat''' (former Emirtel), is the incumbent
Telecommunications carrier and
Internet Service Provider in the
United Arab Emirates . Etisalat provides all types of telecom services in addition to
Cable TV service. Etisalat is currently moving to a
3G Network and
NGN concept in its infrastructure.
Etisalat, which has 33 million subscribers in 14 countries, has made acquisitions and investments in excess of Dh30 billion in expanding international operations.
The UAE-based operator operates in Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gabon, Niger, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Pakistan, and the U.A.E.
Etisalat has been the sole telecommunications service provider in the UAE since 1976 until the arrival of
Du (telco) in February 2007.
Etisalat stands 140th among the Financial Times Top 500 Corporations in the world in terms of market capitalization, and is ranked by The Middle East magazine as the 6th largest company in the Middle East in terms of capitalization and revenues. The Corporation is the largest contributor outside the oil sector to development programmes of the UAE Federal Government. Etisalat has also won accolades from across the region for its nationalization programme.
Currently Etisalat must pay 50% of its profits to the government as a royalty fee; there is speculation this may be reduced to 40% in the near future
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According to WAM (official news agency of the United Arab Emirates), "At the end of September 2005, the number of lines in service are 1,222,905 for telephone, 4,305,821 for mobile and 4,698,17 for internet. Mobile penetration now exceeds 95 per cent."
Recently eCompany/Etisalat incorporated iZone, a system of WiFi hotspots in central locations, such as
Shopping Malls ,
Restaurants , and shisha cafes. iZone can be utilized by either purchasing prepaid cards, which offer 15 AED/hour access rates (about 4.5 USD an hour), or if they are a
Dial-up internet user, they can use their previous existing account and pay 3 AED an hour (less than one USD per hour), or if they are a
Broadband user, they can use their account and gain access for 6 AED an hour (about 2.5 USD an hour).
On May 24th 2006, Etisalat officially released its new corporate logo.
On July 4th, 2006, a consortium led by Etisalat won the rights to develop Egypt's third mobile network, with a winning bid of 16.7 billion Egyptian Pounds (2.29 billion Euro)
The new venture, Etisalat Egypt , will compete with existing service providers
Vodafone and
Mobinil . On September 12, 2006, it was announced that the network will be built by
Ericsson of
Sweden , and Huwai of
China , at a cost of approximately 1.2 billion US dollars[http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/afx/2006/09/14/afx3016264.html .
Etisalat is on an expansion spree. After making its presence felt in
Pakistan ,
Saudi Arabia ,
Egypt and
West Africa , Etisalat is prepared to pay up to $3 billion to bid for state-run Algerie Telecom.
Algeria is expected to announce details on a partial
Privatization of Algerie Telecom by March 2007. The Abu Dhabi-based firm has been expanding aggressively abroad as it has lost a virtual
Monopoly in the UAE to Dubai-based
Du , which aims to gain 30% of the UAE market share.
Although owned by Etisalat,"eCompany" (formally Emirates Internet & Multimedia), provides the Internet for the majority in the United Arab Emirates.
For home users, eCompany provides dial-up connection, ISDN connection, and cable and
DSL connection. The Cable and
DSL connections are known as "Al Shamil". Al Shamil offers speeds from 256K up to 2Mb.
eCompany was the sole
Internet Service Provider of the
United Arab Emirates , but temporarily a second ISP, Sahm Net, which was unaffected by eCompany's censorship, operated in certain new housing developments and Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City. Sahm was acquired by DIC (
Dubai Internet City ), and subsequently became part of
Du , although as of late May 2007 they were still free of the UAE's proxy.
The
Dial-up and
ISDN connections are billed by the hour, whereas the Domestic/Residential Cable and
DSL connections have a fixed monthly rate depending on speed, whereas Business connections are quite legendary for being billed depending on the amount of users and the usage of the connection.
Etisalat has blocked thousands of websites on the web due to various reasons; the statement on the "ban screen" states that websites may be banned due to their content contravening the religious, cultural, political, and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.
These websites include:
- Pornography
- The entire Israel TLD ( .il )
- Certain social-networking websites (such as Orkut and Multiply
- Certain media-sharing websites (such as Flickr , and user pages on YouTube )
- Anti-Islamic websites
- Certain websites which cover aspects of the United Arab Emirates in a critical manner such as uaeprison.com, hetq.am and arabtimes.com
- Anonymous proxy sites
- "Some" File-sharing sites (torrents etc.)
Based upon the directions of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates, Etisalat blocks some websites, such as
VoIP .
Skype is one such service blocked by Etisalat. Many see this action as a move to protect the profits of the telecommunications industry.
The effect of blocking is unclear, as sites are accessible to people using IP spoofing software and with some sites increasing the amount of visits from the UAE only after blocking.
Etisalat has been criticized for many reason over the past years. Some of the issues include:
- High telephone charges, especially in the case of international calls (although this, as of recently, can be attributed to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority which prohibits price-wars between the UAE's telephone companies.
- Proxy blocks websites usually through an automated system which is prone to mistakes; in many cases when sites are purposefully blocked, the company fails to reveal reasons for blocking sites. Even in cases where they do unblock websites, they take several weeks - if not months - to respond.
- The nature of the routing Etisalat uses means many users go through a single IP address when accessing the internet, in cases of vandalism, this means many users can be banned due to a single users activities.
- http://www.etisalat.ae (Official portal of Etisalat UAE)
- http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/uae/ (Open Net Initiative study on the UAE)
- http://hrw.org/advocacy/internet/mena/uae.htm (Human Rights Watch on Etisalat and Free Expression)
- http://eim.ae/ (Etisalat Mail)
- http://www.mobily.com.sa/ (Mobily - Etisalat in KSA)
- http://www.etisalat.af/ (Etisalat Afghanistan)
- http://www.canar.sd/ (Canar - Etisalat in Sudan)
- http://www.evision.ae/ (Etisalat Cable TV)
- http://www.weyak.ae (Etisalat’s entertainment portal)
- http://www.etisalat.com.eg/ (Etisalat Egypt)
- http://www.dubailime.com/ (Dubai Lime)
