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TRA warns du over missing deadline

ABU DHABI — The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has warned telecom operator du for missing the July 12 deadline of providing national and international call services from fixed lines.

du, while blaming Etisalat for allowing limited testing facilities, said it is still awaiting rectification of identified defects and confirmation to open lines to enable this application nationwide. The assertive telecom watchdog TRA in a statement yesterday showed its commitment to ensure the best services for the telecom subscribers in the UAE to safeguard competition, transparency in the business.

It urged the two UAE telecom operators to adhere to the regulations, policies and standards put by the TRA. A written warning was issued by the TRA to du on Sunday for failing to meet its licence obligations to providing national and international call services from homes and offices in the UAE, by dates specified in the licence.

The TRA also approved to postpone the deadlines for du, but only after issuing the warning, to insist on the seriousness of violating deadline obligations that affects negatively the spirit of competition in the UAE telecom sector and the choice of the customers with respect to the telecom services.

Mohamed Al Ghanim, TRA Director-General, said, “We expect du to meet the new deadlines set, where we will reveal the concerning dates in due time, when competition for national and international call services are expected in UAE homes and offices.”

Osman Sultan, CEO of du, said: “The telecom operator was committed to transparency in all matters. It said that the capability of choosing any operator while making national and international calls from fixed lines in homes or offices, is something that is very important to du. In this respect, the TRA provided the regulatory framework for the capability (Carrier Select) to happen. ”

“However,” he continued, “the implementation of such capability requires operational and technical steps to take place between the two operators.”

“Sharing recent developments in this regard,” du CEO said, “the due date for launching du’s Carrier Select was set to be July 12 and du was given a limited testing environment by Etisalat on July 2. A list of issues were identified on July 8 and communicated to Etisalat and du required the capability to be available in preparation for its nationwide launch. The telecom operator on a regular basis updated the telecom regulator on the developing situation.”

“The situation today is that du is waiting for Etisalat to confirm the rectification of identified defects and confirmation to open lines to enable this application nationwide to allow du to launch,” Osman said.

“The TRA has issued on June 15 a Violation Decision because the deadline of July 12 has expired,” he said. “du respects this decision and it will launch this capability after completing extensive testing and when fully satisfied with the quality offered to its customers through the capability, in a few weeks time.”

Etisalat, commenting on the issue, said it cooperated and honoured du’s requests for testing.

At the current stage of testing, du has not specifically identified any defects that are solely attributable to Etisalat, and that would require Etisalat to unilaterally issue a confirmation of rectification. Line opening is not an issue currently, and could not have caused the delays, as the testing needs to be completed first.

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