• Home
• /
• Business

Etisalat says its WiFi charges competitive

In response to the article in Khaleej Times of August 15, 2005 with the headline "eCompany overcharging for low cost WiFi facility," Ahmed bin Ali, Public Relations Manager of Etisalat, said in a statement that while charges for this service vary around the world, eCompany has priced it very competitively. "The iZone has much more value added services in addition to just basic browsing at a lower cost. Wireless Internet is a commercial service as is the case across the world and the decision to first offer a free trial and subsequently launch it, as a value-added service was part of our marketing plan. We also used the initial pre-commercial launch phase to gauge customer feedback on our pricing. The customer feedback was quite positive," Ahmed said.

According to him, the main purpose of WiFi was to increase the usage of broadband across the country. "The introduction of this service is not meant for increasing the profits of Etisalat," he said. Ahmed pointed out that the issue of the iZone service shifting to a paid model was the subject of several discussions with Etisalat and media organisations well before its commercial launch on August 1, 2005.