Etisalat aims to be region’s operator of choice AmCham’s Information & Communications Technology Committee held a breakfast event on December 12 at The Four Seasons Nile Plaza Hotel. Keynote speaker Mohamed H. Omran, chairman of Etisalat, gave a presentation entitled “Etisalat and its aim to become the operator of choice in the Arab world” to 300 AmCham members and guests. Omran started by outlining Etisalat’s history. He related that the UAE-based company began as a state-owned operation named Emirtel but was partially privatized in 1976. In 1982, Etisalat established its first mobile phone network. Two years later, it established one of the Middle East’s first fiber optics networks in the UAE and laid its first submarine cable between the UAE and Bahrain. In addition, it started building its own specialized cable-laying ships, of which it has three today. In 2003, Etisalat began GSM operations in Saudi Arabia, where it acquired one million customers within the first 82 days. It also bought parts of Pakistan Telecom, Atlantic Telecom – a West African operator serving seven countries – and a fixed-line network in Sudan.

Omran also spoke about Etisalat’s active efforts in the development of human capital in the UAE. Etisalat established a Human Resources Development Center, the Etisalat College of Engineering and the Etisalat Academy, through which it hopes to raise the education level and technological expertise of Emiratis. Omran explained that contrary to many people’s opinion, he does not believe that the price Etisalat paid for its mobile license was too high. He also believes that it’s perfectly feasible for mobile penetration in Egypt to reach 50 percent within the next three years, explaining that the same has happened in other countries with similar GDPs.