Middle East & North Africa Telecommunications

Dubai: More than 12,000 people have signed up for the Al Shamil broadband internet service in less than three weeks etisalat said yesterday said.
“The one year contract option gives customers a broadband experience in a secure environment with savings of up to Dh549 with free installation and waiver of the first month’s fee.”
The offer […]

The number of Arab internet users will double to around 50m in three years, according to Google chief Eric Schmidt quoted by Gulf News. He said there will be more online content available for non-English speakers in the near future. Schmidt will be addressing delegates at the upcoming Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai.

Etisalat has followed Bahrain telco Batelco’s lead by introducing a cut-price, ‘time-limited’ broadband internet package for home users costing just AED99 per month.
Available from November 16, Etisalat is billing this 256Kbits per second connection package as an “affordable alternative for high-speed internet browsing and e-mailing”.
The monthly subscription charge of AED99 (US $27) is based on […]

According to Batelco, its previously controversial 256k BD10 ‘inet’ cut-price internet package has generated an “overwhelming response” from the residents of Bahrain.
“We are delighted with the response to our BD10 inet Broadband package,” said Ahmed Al Janahi, Batelco’s general manager of corporate affairs, today. “There are already more than 16,000 customers enjoying this service now […]

MANAMA: Batelco announced yesterday profits of BD70.6 million on a turnover of BD170.1m for the first nine months of this year.
The results were announced by newly-appointed Batelco chairman Shaikh Hamad bin Abdulla Al Khalifa at a board meeting held at the company’s Hamala headquarters.
At the end of the third quarter, Batelco’s results showed an increase […]

Dubai: Two giants of the high-tech world are battling it out for a kingly prize the future of the wireless Internet and both have the Middle East in their sights.
On one end is Intel, the Silicon Valley-based chipmaker that developed the popular Wi-fi microchips that allow café-goers and travellers at airports wireless access to the […]

Iran’s internet service providers (ISPs) have started reducing the speed of Internet access to homes and cafes based on new government-imposed limits, a move critics said appeared to be part of a clampdown on the media.
An official said last week that ISPs were now ‘forbidden’ by the Telecommunications Ministry from providing Internet connections faster than […]

Batelco’s newest high-speed Internet package priced at BD10 per month has generated a huge response from residents of Bahrain.
Batelco announced the BD10 Broadband offer last month and thousands of new customers had pre-registered by the October 10 launch date.
As part of the pre-registration commitment, Batelco started the roll out of the BD10 Packages to customers […]

Information & communications technology (ICT) indicators throughout the Arab region have revealed a two-fold increase in ICT usage, which includes mobile phones and internet penetration.
Although the digital divide between the Middle East and developed nations still exists, Arab governments are rapidly catching up through education, awareness, technical infrastructure and of paramount importance, change management.
Senior IT […]

THE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) yesterday ordered Batelco to reduce its prices and expand its services to allow other operators to access its network.
The TRA is required by law to examine and approve Batelco’s first Reference Access Offer (RAO) - the firm’s basic fee to other operators to access its network.
A specialised team was assigned […]

Account holders from the Commercial Bank of Dubai can pay for all eGovernment services through a new direct debit service, which will immediately update their records. The direct debit solution is part of Dubai eGovernment’s ePay initiative and is based on Etisalat’s secure payments platform. Payments can be initiated by the customer online through the […]

INTERNET users in Bahrain are being warned by experts to be on their guard when receiving e-mails this World Cup season, as football fever has not only gripped fans’ attention but also that of virus creators.
As the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world takes place in the next four weeks, experts fear that material […]

While WiMax has been widely touted as a ‘bridging’ technology to help the Middle East catch up with more developed nations, doubts have been raised over its future this month.
In a wide-ranging report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — an influential international trade body — has high-lighted spectrum, regulatory, industry and security […]

WiMAX stands for World Interoperability for Microwave Access. WiMAX/IEEE 802.16 is a global standard-based technology for Broadband Wireless Access. WiMAX vendors state that WiMAX systems are able to cover a large geographical area, up to 50 km and to deliver significant bandwidth to end-users at up to 72 Mbps. According to the WiMAX forum, WiMAX […]

3/02/06 - LightPointe, a designer and manufacturer of high-speed outdoor wireless products, announced that 2Connect Bahrain, an emerging competitive carrier, has deployed its FlightStrata 100 XA outdoor, point-to-point wireless links as part of a metropolitan Ethernet mesh network throughout the capital city of Manama.
2Connect has installed eight FlightStrata 100 XA links to provide local businesses […]

According to Sharad Agarwal, CEO of Cyber Gear, the company that owns DubaiCityGuide.com, “This is largely due to the fact that we are now well indexed on Google search engine in a way that all Dubai related searches made worldwide show DubaiCityGuide.com amongst the Top 3 in most categories.”
DubaiCityGuide.com has also tied up with the […]

Why, with such a young population, is the Arab world still lagging behind when it comes to the digital revolution? Less than four per cent of people in the Arab world are internet users, according to ITU data. The penetration rate is just 3.7% - in a region with an 8.59% penetration in landline subscribers, […]