Du gearing up for 4G network

"We’ve conducted trail... successfully... [and] we are assessing them," he told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the two-day Internet Show 2011 in the capital. He expected that within coming months, du will be able to give a date to launching this revolutionary mobile broadband technological advancement. The chief executive expected the telco would be able to achieve a 25 per cent growth in earnings in the year, the highest in the region. "So far our growth story is continuing. We don’t see this changing in the coming years," said Sultan.

Du in August posted a 51 per cent rise in second quarter profit as it added more mobile and fixed-line subscribers, during revenue from data usage surged.

Sultan as well said that following the commercial launch of infrastructure sharing between the country’s two telecom operators, there will be no Internet protocol television, or IPTV, for du. He said IPTV will "come later," however declined to give a specific date.

Du shares last traded on Tuesday 0.3 per cent higher at Dh2.99 in a slightly positive overall market. On the capital expenditure in the year, he told Khaleej Times, it would range between Dh1.5-Dh1.7 billion. The expenditure will expand the fixed-line infrastructure, mobile phone network and create mobile broadband facilities to make the company more efficient and offer more quality services.

The Voice-over Internet Protocol

On much delayed launch of the Voice-over Internet Protocol, or VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), he said du is offering various products to its clients based on using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

However, in terms of offering the facility to the clients directly, allowing them to use the Skype on their mobile phones, he said: "We don’t have a date" for it.