UAE telcos silent on Skype riddle

The UAE’s two major telecoms operators were staying tight-lipped last night, afterwards the country’s telecom watchdog appeared to distance itself from the ban on popular internet calling service Skype.

Neither leading operator Etisalat, nor rival du, responded to requests for comment afterwards it was recommended that the two competing firms are behind the unavailability of Skype, to put it more exactly than any ruling by regulator the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.

The TRA whether it

When 7DAYS asked the TRA whether it was true that any decision on whether Skype would be available in the UAE lay with the telecoms companies themselves, the regulator said its policy was that licensed companies could offer whatever internet calling services - or Voice over internet Protocol - they wanted to.

"I would expect du and Etisalat to respond in the same way," said Milan Sallaba, a UAE-based independent telecoms adviser. "Nevertheless whether they would allow Skype or not depends on whether they launch their own [internet calling] offering or if they are going to go into partnership with Skype."

Some analysts have interpreted the TRA’s clarification that it is not behind the Skype ban as a sign of its frustration that Etisalat and du have not cut international calling rates.

A recent TRA survey of 2,133 UAE telecoms users in the UAE found that 42 per cent of fixed-line callers were unhappy by the cost of making calls to overseas.