No liberalisation yet for UAE’s IPTV market
Rebecca Hawkes ©RapidTVNews | 22-07-2011
The forthcoming liberalisation of the fixed communications market in the UAE will not extend to triple play services, meaning true competition in the provision of IPTV by telcos Etisalat and du is not likely this year, according to The National.The two operators currently offer triple play packages for fixed line telephony, internet and IPTV in non-competing areas of the Emirates but, come December, the fibre-based services of both are due to be opened up to all customers across the UAE. All except Etisalat’s E-Life and du’s duTV IPTV offerings, it would seem.
“The operators plan to extend the … agreement to include IPTV services at a later stage, when a number of commercial and technical requirements are aligned,” the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has reportedly clarified.
Analysts believe that although the market for fixed telephony and internet provision opens up opportunity, this disclosure will hamper the take up of du’s services in the areas already served by the more established state operator Etisalat.
"It won't include the IPTV services in the first phase," Matthew Reed, analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media told The National. "That's a significant watering-down of the level of competition.
"When du is going into new areas, it won't be able to offer the full triple play service," he added. "I think that's going to mute the competition … It will have to be a very attractive broadband offer to make you switch."
There have been technical issues in providing bit stream access across the operator’s fibre optic networks to allow fixed line sharing, which will be a world first, according to TRA. This move towards a more level playing field for the duopoly was originally planned for 2010.
Mohamed Al Ghanim, director general, TRA told the National: "We hope that this final stage of testing and implementation is successful so that we can see a commercial launch before the end of the year."
Currently Etisalat provides fixed line, internet and TV services throughout most of the UAE – in addition to its mobile service. Du meanwhile, offers an increasingly popular national mobile service, and offers an internet and IPTV service in just a small but high density area of Dubai.
