Etisalat Group’s ‘smart service’ honoured

Etisalat Group has emerged the best wholesale provider of telecommunications services in the Middle East for the third consecutive year at the annual Capacity Awards ceremony, which held in Amsterdam, Holland recently.

The event organized by Capacity Media recognized Etisalat’s leadership in providing ‘smart services’ and for developing its portfolio beyond the provision of transit and interconnection.

Executive Vice President, Carrier & Wholesale for Etisalat Group, Mr. Ali Amiri, said that this year, the telecom operator introduced its ‘Smart Hub’ which is the region’s most important hub for wholesale connectivity, applications and content.

This facility, he said, enables Etisalat to provide access to a more sophisticated range of services including roaming hub, and showed that the platform allows other operators to establish a network of 600 roaming partners around the world with the minimum effort.

Etisalat, Amiri said, established the regional hub for internet traffic, thanks to its extensive investment in wholesale capacity., noting that the network has continued to grow with the addition of TEAMS cable earlier this year; one of the first cables connecting East Africa, and bringing affordable broadband access to millions of people on the continent with the rest of the world.

In 2010, he recalled that Etisalat announced, in conjunction with industry leading partners, the Regional Cable Network (RCN), the first terrestrial cable connecting the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan Syria and Turkey to Europe.

“This cable will not only provide extra capacity, but will also add resiliency to regional networks,” he said.

Reacting to the award, the Chief Commercial Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Wael Ammar described it as a direct reflection of long years of operations founded on excellence in customer service in all its operations worldwide.

“We are constantly working to understand how to improve our service to our customers in Nigeria and globally,” he said, stressing that the award is yet another testimony to Etisalat’s pioneering status among regional operators and the success of its business strategy in meeting customer needs and exceeding their expectations.

Etisalat, he said, has continued to be one of the largest carriers of voice traffic in the region and recently introduced wholesale Points of Presence around the world.

“Etisalat has also extended its MPLS Virtual Private Networks (VPN) across the region, enabling advanced services for business customers,” Ammar said.

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