Etisalat emulates Zain’s One Network

UAE telco Etisalat today announced the launch of its Roaming Alliance initiative by introducing a special rate for its customers roaming in two of its group networks– Egypt (Etisalat Misr) and Saudi Arabia (Mobily).

Etisalat is looking to expand the roaming deal beyond Saudi Arabia and Egypt in the not-too-distant future

The initiative is part of a strategic vision by the telco to leverage synergies across its group in order to deliver a value proposition to its 64 million customer base and enhance the appeal of mobile services to roaming customers.

The development is a direct challenge to competitor Zain’s One Network borderless single network, which was first launched in east Africa in September 2006, and has since been expanded to cover a dozen countries in Africa and a further four in the Middle East.

The Etisalat Roaming Alliance offers customers a simple and transparent rate whenever they roam, removing the complexity of calculating roaming charges. As part of the Roaming Alliance, Wasel prepaid and postpaid customers of Etisalat who roam in Saudi Arabia through Mobily and Egypt through Etisalat Misr would be charged a simple flat rate at AED1.40 (US$0.38) per minute for local calls, AED4.65 per minute for calls back to UAE and AED1.10 per text message.

While the Zain One Network allows roamers within the network to switch seamlessly from one network to another without them needing to reconfigure their devices, in order to join the Etisalat’s offer, customers need to switch manually to the Mobily network in Saudi Arabia and Etisalat Misr in Egypt.

“Etisalat‘s global reach across the 16 markets we operate in gives us an opportunity to leverage our group synergies for the benefit of our customers,” commented Etisalat chief marketing officer, Essa Al Haddad. “This launch is just the first phase of our Roaming Alliance offer and we would like to extend this eventually to all our customers across the various markets we operate in addition to exploring roaming partnerships with other operators.”