The services of Internet telephony, which allows making full-featured local and international telephone calls via the Internet, will for the first time be officially provided by telecommunications operators in the United Arab Emirates by the summer of this year. The UAE’s two existing telecommunications companies, etisalat and du, plan to introduce a new Internet telephony service by June 2010, Arabian Business reported with reference to the Emarat Al Youm newspaper.
Both operators are currently awaiting final approval to begin the licensing process for services from the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). TRA will also establish rules for using Internet telephony in the UAE and pricing policies. It is expected that the cost of telephone calls over the Internet will be several times lower than in normal mode. The process of legalizing Internet telephony in the UAE has taken more than two years.
