Here are the latest subscriber figures for Middle East as published by Hot Telecoms in its latest report.

Source: Gulfnews

du, the integrated telecommunication operator in the UAE has announced that it has exceeded the two million customer mark. This milestone according to the company has been achieved within 15 months from the launch of its mobile services.

Under the TRA’s definition, any mobile customer who has made a call, or sent an SMS or MMS, or received a call within the last 90 days is considered an “active subscriber”

Source: PC Mag Mideast

The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has said it will start consultation process on the licensing of the broadcast of mobile television in the UAE.

Currently a similar type of service is available through 3G streaming.

However, this new mobile TV service is provided through a different technology and will enable the public to enjoy a wider selection of channels at better quality.

The TRA has carried out a detailed study of the licensing criteria and procedures to be followed to enable the success of the service in the UAE. The consultation process is scheduled to start on Wednesday.

Interested parties are invited to submit their comments to the TRA.

Source: Gulf News

NDTV Arabia, the India centric Middle East channel launched in April 2007, has got itself a website, NDTVArabia.tv. They will promote the website through the channel. They have also launched a UAE specific shortcode(6388) service for stock/ news/cricket/movie updates. The service is priced at Dhs 4 per sms (Approx Rs 40 per sms)

Source: Contentsutra

Dubai-based Emirates airlines has become the first carrier in the world to commercially launch an inflight mobile telephone service. It said the first authorised mobile telephone call made from a commercial flight was made on Thursday 20th March at 30,000 feet (about 9,000 metres) from an Emirates Airbus A340-300 aircraft travelling from Dubai to Casablanca.

The aircraft is the first in the airline’s fleet to be fitted with the AeroMobile system, which ensures mobile telephones operate at minimum power during flights so as to not interfere with aircraft electronics. Passengers will be be allowed to make five or six calls per flight and will also be able to send and receive text messages. Emirates, which is the largest airline in the Middle East, serves 99 cities in 62 countries. It is owned by the government of Dubai, which a booming member of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates and is positioning itself as a global travel hub.

Source: AFP

Etisalat is taking steps to block the flow of SMS spam, with the deployment of a spam blocking solution from an Irish mobile security company.

The UAE telco will roll out the service to automatically cut out spam sent from outside the Emirates, to protect Etisalat’s 6.4 million customers from unwanted text messages. The solution has been customized to screen both English and Arabic language messages, although it will only block spam SMS sent from outside the country.

Source: Arabian Business

I thought this will be interesting to let the reader’s of wirelessduniya know how shortcode services run in UAE. The 2 major  carriers in UAE- Etisalat and du provides 4 digit shortcodes. Unlike India where service provider’s have one single 5 digit shortcode (example: 58888, 53636 etc) for all the mobile services, the service provider in UAE has to register for individual short codes for each service based on the pricing model of the short code.I am not sure if MO billing is entirely the reason,one can have differential billing on MO. Also, services that have the same price point can run on a single shortcode, if differential billing is not possible.

I think it is mainly because the market is regulated and telcos want everything (new service) to be registered, that is the reason they might have tied it to a shortcode for better monitoring but still its one service per shortcode so they know that shortcode XXXX runs YYYY service. If they let n number of services to run over a shortcode, the monitoring for them will be difficult and service providers can launch any number of service over a given shortcode.But for an end user, it is very difficult to remember each and every shortcode for using a particular service. Unified shortcode is the best solution and Etisalat and Du must look into it from a better user experience.

Please feel free to put your own opinion in the comments section. Would love to hear about the experience of existing service providers in the middle east.

du has signed a bi-lateral agreement with Reliance Globalcom to offer a variety of data services in the UAE. The agreement will enable both companies to jointly offer value-added data services from the virtual PoP (Point of Presence), which relays calls via third party circuit to the Internet provider’s central location. Global Ethernet, Managed Services, IP VPN and MPLS would also be offered under the agreement.

Source : AMEinfo

UAE-based operator Emirates Telecommunications (Etisalat) has taken control of Sudan’s Canar Telecommunications by almost doubling its stake to 82 percent. Etisalat did not say how much it paid for the additional 45 percent in Canar. Etisalat chairman Mohammad Hassan Omran had told Reuters in an interview in November 2007 that the company was considering new investments of up to USD 5 billion in Africa.

Source: WirelessFederation

TextTV, a text messaging platform that lets TV viewers interact with each other by sending text messages directly to the TV screen.

Through TextTV and at specified times, viewers can send text messages and watch those messages scroll across the bottom of the screen.All messages are filtered. TV networks can also use TextTV to poll the audience or tie a messaging session to a particular TV program.

TextTV makes interactive television a reality. It allows audience members to interact with their television using the mobile phone they already have. Using TextTV, stations can engage their audiences, extend viewership and create entirely new sponsorship opportunities.

TextTV is very popular among the Arab community and it can be easily set up in the middle east.It is inexpensive as well and  Companies who have set up TextTv’s in the middle east are already making  lot of money and there are more opportunities for new players.

Mobile Operators in this region know the potential of TextTv and are already providing shortcodes for interactivity.

For details on how to set up TextTv in ME, get in touch with me.