RIYADH, 9 September 2004 — UAE telecom company Etisalat’s plans to launch full-scale GSM services and Saudi Telecom’s recent offer of new and additional land lines free of charge would trigger fierce competition between the two leading to improved customer services at highly competitive rates.
One of the major beneficiaries of this competition will be the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which had hitherto been finding it difficult to have easy access to IT services. This was the assessment of Geoff Doy, chief executive officer (Sales & Marketing) of Marconi, who said a high-level delegation of STC that visited London recently showed a keen interest in their Next Generation Network (NGN) that facilitates speedy access to Internet services.
In a joint interview with Arab News, Doy and Fadhil M. Alibrahim, chairman and executive director of Marconi Middle East, said that from STC’s strong interest in their technology it was clear that the strategy that STC is adopting is similar to that of some major international players.
“STC is seeking to align itself with strong vendors that could provide next generation technology. Marconi looks forward to a rewarding partnership with STC in providing state-of-the-art technology,” Doy said.
He added that the thrust of the competition is to introduce more value-added services, improve the quality of product and services, and bring down the cost of telecom services. The ultimate beneficiary will be the consumer. As a result of these measures, the prices will come down and broadband services will become more affordable.
He cited Marconi’s NGN consisting of broad band high speed fiber optic transmission that will speed up the flow of data to large and medium-scale enterprises.
He pointed out that the one million PC initiative that was announced, together with the wave of liberalization in the telecommunications market, would facilitate easy access to the telecom services. He was referring to the recent announcement by the Ministry of Education that it would equip government schools with one million PCs as part of its initiative to promote e-education.
With communications changing almost day to day, Marconi predicts that voice and data networks will converge, electronic transactions will increase tenfold — virtually every human activity will be touched by new communications. To this end, it has joined forces with High Cap Company in the Kingdom to bring its latest innovations to the region.
Meanwhile, Etisalat fired its salvo with an announcement that the company plans to launch full-scale GSM services in major Saudi cities providing one million mobile lines within six months. “We have the authority to reduce telecom service charges by up to 15 percent,” Al-Eqtesadiah reported.
The Arabic daily quoted a senior company official as saying that Etisalat’s initial focus would be on expanding the reach of GSM services to ensure that “we are moving forward as quickly and effectively.”
