Etisalat

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Emirates Telecommunication Corporation - Etisalat

Type	Public
Founded	United Arab Emirates Government
Headquarters	Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Key people	Mohammed Hassan Omran Chairman,
Revenue	▲ $5,815 million (FY 2007-08)

Etisalat is a UAE-based telecommunications services provider, currently operating in 17 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The telecom's customer base is claimed to reach 74 million customers, with a total operating area population span close to 1.6 billion people.^[1]

On October 18, 2008, Etisalat reported net revenue of USD $5.204 billion (AED 19.1 billion) and net profits of USD $1.989 billion (AED 19.1bn).^[2]

Etisalat is one of the Internet hubs in the Middle East (AS8966), providing connectivity to other telecommunications operators in the region^[3]. It is also the largest carrier of international voice traffic in the Middle East and Africa and the 12th largest voice carrier in the world.^[4] As of October 2008, Etisalat has 510 roaming agreements covering 186 countries and enabling Blackberry, 3G, GPRS and voice roaming.^[5] Etisalat operates Points of Presence (PoP) in New York, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris and Singapore.

1 Business Units
2 Etisalat International Investments
3 Internet Services
4 Internet Censorship
5 Criticism
6 See also
7 External links
8 References

[edit] Business Units

Etisalat Building in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Etisalat incorporates multiple business units (under the umbrella of Etisalat Services Holding LLC) that offer services to other telecommunications operators and organizations, including training (Etisalat Academy^[6]), SIM/smart card manufacturing and payment solutions (Ebtikar^[7]), data clearing house services (EDCH^[8]) peering/voice and data transit (Emirates Internet Exchange - EMIX^[9]), cable TV (eVision^[10]), as well as submarine cable laying services (eMarine^[11]).

Etisalat is a major investor in Thuraya, a satellite geo-mobile communication systems provider.

As of 2006, Etisalat is undergoing restructuring that will see the de-merger of many of its business units that are currently operating under the centralized and direct management of Etisalat. As part of the program, the telecom has launched a re-branding campaign, releasing a new corporate logo and identity in May 2006.

[edit] Etisalat International Investments

Etisalat International is the business unit of Etisalat that operates outside the UAE and manages the corporation's stakes in telecommunications carriers in India, Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, the Ivory Coast, Egypt, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Pakistan and Indonesia.

[edit] Mobily - Saudi Arabia

One of Etisalat's first international investments was the bid to become the second mobile services operator in Saudi Arabia. Etihad Etisalat, a consortium led by Etisalat, has won the 2G GSM license by offering USD $3.25 billion. Currently operating under the brand name Mobily, Etihad Etisalat offers Saudi Arabia subscribers conventional and 3.5G mobile telephony services, and has floated shares on the Saudi stock market.

[edit] PTCL - Pakistan

Among the acquisitions of Etisalat in 2005 was a 26% management stake in Pakistan Telecommunications (PCTL) that was put on sale by the government of Pakistan as part of a large privatization initiative. In order to outbid competitors (which included Singapore Telecoms and China Mobile), Etisalat offered USD $2.56 billion for the stake. According to some analysts, the telecom has overpaid, as the bid went far beyond the estimated USD $2 billion value of the package.^[12]

[edit] Etisalat Misr - Egypt

In July 2006, a consortium led by Etisalat has been granted the rights to develop Egypt's third mobile network, with a winning bid of 16.7 billion Egyptian pound (EUR €2.29 billion euro).^[13] 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 Huawei of China, at a cost of approximately USD $1.2 billion.^[14]

In 2007, at the Comms MEA Awards ceremony Etisalat was presented with the ‘Best New Entrant’ award for its Egypian operations. Award winners were selected by a panel of experts from KPMG, the Arab Advisors Group and Oliver Wyman, Dubai.^[15]

[edit] Canar - Sudan

Etisalat is one of the founding partner companies of Canar Telecom, a fixed-line telecom services operator. In September 2007 Etisalat has raised its stake in Canar from 37% to 82% at an estimated cost of AED 584.17 million (USD $159 million).^[16]

Canar was launched on November 27, 2005^[17]. The operator is reported to use NGN and Wireless Local Loop (WLL) technologies for its voice, data, internet and multimedia services. Canar is one of the first operators in Africa to use an NGN network core.^[18]

Etisalat also holds a 4% stake in Sudatel, a mobile, fixed and Internet services provider.

[edit] EMTS - Nigeria

Etisalat signed an agreement to acquire 40% of and manage Emerging Markets Telecommunications Services, Nigeria’s fifth GSM operator.^[16]

[edit] Zantel - Tanzania

In January 1999, Etisalat acquired a stake in Zanzibar Telecom (a Tanzania-based mobile operator) for USD $2.4 million (AED 8.8 million) and has subsequently increased the stake by 17% in July 2007.^[16]

Since then, Zantel has introduced telcom services that are typical for the African region, such as mobile banking services for customers without access to banking facilities (Zpesa ^[19] Mobile Banking).

[edit] Atlantique Telecom/Moov - West Africa

In Africa, Etisalat acquired 50% of Atlantique Telecom’s shares. Based in the Ivory Coast, AT owns mobile operators in Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, Niger, Central African Republic, Gabon and Ivory Coast. In 2007, Etisalat increased its shares in AT to 70% and again in May 2008, to 82%. AT group subscribers totaled 2.9 million at the end of 2007, which is a 107% increase from the previous year.^[16]

Ivory Coast:^[20] Moov, is currently Ivory Coast's third-largest cell-phone operator with a 1.5 million customer base. In 2008 Moov Ivory Coast introduced the first nationwide cell-phone coverage, based on Thuraya satellite access technology. It is the first time that such a service has been offered in sub-Saharan Africa, outside South Africa. It was expected that the expanded coverage introduced by the satellite service would help boost Moov's customer base and even overtake France Telecom's unit Orange as the top telecom services provider in the country.

Benin: Etisalat operates in Benin under the Moov brand. On 24 October 2007 the government of Benin has reassigned Telecel’s operating license to Etisalat.^[21]

In February 2008,^[22] His Excellency Dr. Boni Yayi, President of Benin, honoured Etisalat chairman, Mohammad Hassan Omran during a ceremony to celebrate Etisalat’s efforts in developing and promoting the telecommunications sector in Benin.

[edit] Excelcomindo - Indonesia

Indonesia-based mobile services operator PT Excelcomindo Pratama is Etisalat’s first acquisition in the Far East. In December 2007 Etisalat took a 15.97% stake after paying USD $438 million (AED 1.6 billion). At the time of the acquisition Excelomindo had 15 million mobile subscribers.^[16]

[edit] Etisalat Afghanistan

Etisalat Afghanistan is a newly established GSM operator, 100% owned by Etisalat.^[23] It was established in May 2006 after the UAE telecom won the license to operate the fourth mobile services provider in the country. Etisalat's bid for the license was USD $40.1 million (AED147.3 million) and services were launched in August 2007.^[16]

[edit] Internet Services

The number of Etisalat's Internet subscribers reportedly stands at 1.02 million.^[24]

Some of the Internet services for home users that Etisalat offers include:

3G Mobile Internet access
Broadband Internet services (Al Shamil^[25])
Prepaid and post-paid dialup Internet access

Etisalat also operates iZone, a system of Wi-Fi hotspots in central locations, such as shopping malls, restaurants, and sheesha cafes. iZone can be accessed by either purchasing prepaid cards (AED 15/hour, USD $4.5/hour), or if using an existing account with the operator (AED 3/hour for dial-up account holders, or AED 6/hour for broadband users).

Dial-up and ISDN Internet access services are billed by the hour, whereas the domestic and residential cable and DSL connections have a fixed monthly rate depending on speed. Other Internet links, aimed at business users, have traffic utilization plans and relatively high rates when exceeding the allocated bandwidth quota. This has caused bad publicity for Etisalat and is a major source of criticism.

[edit] Internet Censorship

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Etisalat operates an Internet content filtering system that blocks access to web resources that are claimed to be controversial or offensive (i.e. sexually explicit content, certain political and religious websites, anonymizers and proxies) or harmful (i.e. numeric IP addresses, known phishing or malicious websites, botnet command servers). The use of content filtering has been mandated by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the United Arab Emirates, which is the telecoms regulatory body in the country.

The type of content that is restricted by Etisalat includes:

Pornography, nudity and sexually explicit content
The entire Israel country code top-level domain (.il)
Certain media-sharing websites (such as flickr)
Anti-Islamic websites
Websites criticizing the United Arab Emirates (UAEprison, hetq, and Arabtimes)
Anonymous proxy sites (such as vtunnel, pzeg, etc.)
Gay and Lesbian Rights websites (such as Gaydar, Mogenic etc.)
Numerical IP address links (for example, http://10.11.1.1/)

Under TRA orders Etisalat also blocks Voice over IP service providers, such as Skype. This action is seen as a move to protect the revenue streams of UAE's telecommunications industry, as it is a main contributor to the country's federal budget.

There are claims that Etisalat breaks the rules of net neutrality by throttling peer-to-peer, gaming and other types of network traffic in order to reduce the load on its oversubscribed international links. The effect of this interference is supposedly most noticeable during weekends or periods of high network use.^{[citation needed]}

The overall efficiency of the country-wide content filtering is unclear, as many of the technologically savvy users have discovered tools and methods to bypass the content filter.

[edit] Criticism