Tuesday 28 April 2009

Lines drawn in Etisalat fight

Etisalat could face fines worth millions of dirhams if it fails to follow a Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) directive on competition in the fixed-line telephone market, the authority said yesterday.

In 2005, the TRA ordered Etisalat and its competitor, du, to introduce a system allowing customers to switch their landline accounts from one to the other. Until the middle of last year, neither had introduced it.

Last June, the regulator gave both companies until January to comply with the order. While du has since complied, Etisalat told the regulator last month that the costs and practicalities involved meant it would hold off until late next year, when it had switched all of its customers to the new national fibre-optic network.

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