According to industry analysts, there were almost 80 million voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) subscribers worldwide in 2007, with the global market’s worth expected to rise to US$48.9 billion by 2010. Michelle Mills investigates what slice of this growth operators in the region are likely to enjoy as third-party provision of VoIP is liberalised over time

Etisalcom’s Al Snan says the entry of third-party VoIP providers is inevitable in every telecoms market and incumbents and regulators ought to prepare for that

The region’s VoIP community assembled at a conference in Dubai last month, which reinforced the impression that there remains no universal strategy among regional regulators as to how best to accommodate the use of web-based and third-party provided VoIP services.

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The phenomenal subscription growth across the Middle East over recent years has seen with it an acceleration in network rollout and coverage as operators rush to meet the capacity needs of their growing subscriber base.

Devine Kofiloto is a senior consultant with Teleplan Consulting.

The subsequent increase in voice traffic and the take-up of wireless broadband will see backhaul, transmission and core networks come under further strain. In a region where many of the operators do not have adequate wireline infrastructure in place to backhaul cellular traffic, this bottleneck will become all the more pronounced with the current focus on data centric networks and the move towards converged service offerings. Continue reading →

Kuwaiti-born IT solutions provider International Turnkey Systems (ITS) has become a local success story with 19 offices across the Arab world. Michelle Mills travelled to Egypt and met with senior ITS executives to discuss the launch of the company’s new brand and its future direction

Amid a dazzling light display and a striking animation, the new logo and brand of ITS was launched in Sharm El Sheikh at the end of May. Managing director and general manager Khaled Faraj Al-Saeid stated that the event marked the milestone of ITS’ internal transformation to emerge as a “company without borders”.

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Hits Telecom chairman Sultan Bahabri tells Comm. how he is going about selecting the best corporate assets in order to create a leading global mobile operation by 2015

Sultan Bahabri describes Hits Telecom as a global telecoms 3.0 style company that can benefit from its lack of legacy infrastructure

On July 28, Hits Telecom is set to commercially launch its GSM network in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. It is arguably one of the furthest markets that a Gulf-based operator has dared to enter, and what makes the development of even greater interest is the fact that Hits Telecom is a relative novice to the telecoms operator space.

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Last October, Dubai Internet City celebrated its seventh anniversary of establishment, and confirmed its position as the leading managed ICT hub in the region. Malek Al Malek was appointed executive director of the technology cluster earlier this year, and spoke to Comm. about DIC’s progress to date as well as its exciting future prospects

Dubai Internet City is able to process applications for licensing new companies in the hub in a matter of a few days

Turning off Dubai’s busy Sheikh Zayed Road and encountering the first round-about within the Dubai Internet City (DIC) compound, one would be mistaken for believing the physical infrastructure has been in place for at least a decade. This is not in fact the case, and like much of the bustling city in which it exists, DIC’s expansion in a few short years has been nothing short of tremendous.

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