07 July, 2006

Dubai-based firm out to rival Skype

Khaleej Times:
Dubai-based Efonica is positioning itself to become the global leader in voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services, ahead of current leader, Skype, which has 100 million subscribers.

And as soon as the Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA) in the UAE rules that VoIP is legal, slated to be in the first quarter of 2007, Efonica is ready to pounce.

"We aim to be ready as soon as the TRA makes an announcement," said Efonica's regional director for Asia and Africa, Ibrahim Choueiry.

The question remains however whether this IP to IP based dial-up service remains free, as thousands of residents within Dubai and other emirates would like, or whether the service will be available only through two providers — the incumbent etisalat and the new operator du.

Choueiry, believes that the TRA will "probably let IP to IP calls be a free service," in much the same way as communicating via MSN Messenger is free.

3 comments:

B.D. said...

That's good news. Hope they will be good at customer service--as interent phoning can be a bit more complicated than the usual thing.

bandicoot said...

So if this one is going to be legal, does this mean extending this new-found legality to Skype?

Anonymous said...

For Etisalat it will be the smartest to do a partnership with Skype - the proven technology with excellent customer support. Just need to process the payment through Etisalat (i even will pay extra premium 2-5% on top of the bill to Etisalat).

Why to reinvent the wheel. Stupid management, and brain-dead creativity.

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