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Etisalat Participates At ITU Telecoms World Conference
Published Oct 12, 2009
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Mohammed Omran, Etisalat's Chairman, stressed the importance of flexibility in laws and legislation governing the telecommunications sector to help stimulate continued growth of the sector.
This came during his participation at the ITU Telecoms World conference, which is taking place under the theme 'Open Networks Connected Minds' in Geneva.
In a session titled 'Regulating in times of Crisis', Mohammed Omran highlighted the accumulated experience of Etisalat in dealing with various laws and regulations issued by the regulatory authorities in Etisalat's 17 Asian, Middle Eastern and African markets. Some of these markets have a great many laws regulating the telecoms sector, whereas others are much more liberal.
Mohammed Omran highlighted the role of laws and legislation in improving competition amongst operators. He called for prudence and careful consideration of problems faced in each market to help overcome the unique characteristics of each situation. This should take the interests of all parties into account.
Omran added that having a single, uniform law governing the global telecom sector is not possible and that countries should aim to develop a tailored policy that is focused on the individual characteristics of their market, rather than try to import ideas from foreign markets.
He also called for concessions from regulators in return for investments made in the interest of the community, for example, to provide connectivity to remote areas.
This will help the operator to recover part of the investments in these projects and encourage them to enter other remote areas.
He added that operators in some markets attain support from their regulator in order to continue investing and support innovation and new services.
Low taxation was highlighted as one area of support that will help encourage the deployment of critical network infrastructure.
Omran also urged telecommunication companies in the same country to cooperate and work on better utilisation of infrastructure and other capabilities to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency in offering better services to customers.
Mohammed Omran highlighted the achievements Etisalat is making in its home market in the UAE and said that Etisalat is close to complete its fiber optic network in the UAE. This will help respond to the high demand for many new services from customers.
Etisalat's chairman stressed the importance of transparency and consistency, as well as adherence to a commonly accepted rule of law for better relations among regulators and operators.
He gave an example of how nations could attempt to obtain extra fees from their licensee and how these unexpected costs would have negative impact on investment environment in those countries.
Omran cautioned regulators in the region to reconsider issuing more licenses, and said that the experience of some countries that have issued more licenses than market needs has resulted in market fragmentation leading to inadequate investments from operators. He also called for a regular review of legislation and laws, particularly those relating to pricing, as this is important to keep up with rapidly changing markets. This was in particular for the Gulf States, which are witnessing strong competition between operators and have high penetration.
Mohammed Omran concluded by focusing on the importance of evaluating legislation and laws to ensure that they achieve their objectives and avoid negative effects on the telecommunication sector in particular and the role it plays in the economic development in general.
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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