A Slap on the Wrist for Etisalat

UPDATE(S) - We had a very interesting interview with the TRA director general, Mohamed al Ghanim, who shed more light onto the whole situation. Etisalat also had its say, claiming the cost of complying with the TRA's request is "unjustified."

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The Arabic daily Al Khaleej has a story today saying that Etisalat has been fined by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) for failing to move forward in allowing competition in the landline telephone market.

The fine is apparently related to Etisalat implementing the carrier pre-selection system, which lets people use du through the Etisalat network. It is pretty much the central plank of the liberalisation of the UAE telecom market, which makes this a pretty interesting story, if true.

The system was announced by the TRA back in July last year, but has yet to be seen alive and in the wild.     

The report, citing unnamed sources, said Etisalat was given a deadline of the end of March to implement the system, which requires technical adjustments to its physical infrastructure. The company has yet to complete the change, and is reported to have complained that the transition is too costly, and will be better done once the new national fibre-optic network is completed.

We're following all this up with both the TRA and Etisalat, but as usual, its takes a day or two to get a response - so stay tuned.

As anyone who pays for broadband knows, competition in the market for fixed line telecoms is seriously lacking here. As we reported last week, Farid Faraidooni, the executive vice president for commercial operations at du, thinks competition via carrier pre-selection will be the main catalyst for lower broadband prices.