Ahmed bin Ali Group Senior Vice President Etisalat Group said the Middle East’s leading and largest telecoms group has again excelled and raised the benchmark for the region’s operator community, signing breakthrough agreements in the fields of mobile broadband and financial services. Its senior executives have also led the conference agenda meeting the industry’s leading change makers and addressing matters of regulation, international expansion and network management.
On the first day of the conference, Etisalat invited the senior figures from the industry to a private celebration at the headquarters of FC Barcelona. Here Etisalat’s Chairman, Mohammad Omran and representatives from its senior management team provided an update on the company’s landmark achievements in 2010 including its latest subscriber numbers of 135million across its 18 markets.
On day two, Etisalat’s Group Chief Technology Officer, Amaru Chavez participated in a high-level roundtable organised by Ericsson. Here he laid down the case for greater cooperation and partnerships in sharing infrastructure between operators aiming to derive value from emerging markets in Africa and Asia. He also outlined the strategic importance of outsourcing in terms of infrastructure deployment and maintenance to enable faster roll-out and more efficient network management.
Then on the third day, Etisalat announced three key announcements that will provide a heightened customer experience to its customers in the UAE and across its international footprint.
The first of these announcements was an agreement with Western Union that will eventually enable Etisalat’s subscribers across the region to send and receive Western Union Money Transfer® transactions using their mobile “wallets,” or accounts tied to their mobile phones.
Etisalat later signed two agreements with Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei to deploy the Middle East’s first LTE network. The advanced LTE technology which has already been tested and deployed in the UAE, enables download speeds of up to 173 Mbps. This can accommodate multimedia applications such as video conferencing, high definition content transmission, high speed video downloads and social networks, giving Etisalat’s customers an unbeatable mobile broadband experience.
Finally and concluding the summit, Etisalat’s Group Chief International Investment Officer, Jamal Aljarwan, addressed hundreds of delegates assembled to hear about the company’s international expansion plans. Here he not only explained some of the plans for the future expansion of the Etisalat Group, but also addressed the key strategic assets that have enabled its previous growth to be such a success.
Etisalat is one of the leading telecoms groups in the world employing over 53,000 people in 18 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
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