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Etisalat, UAE's incumbent telecoms carrier. Image Credit: Gulf News

Dubai: Etisalat is giving away discounts to customers who wish to sign up for their international roaming services.

The telecommunications company announced on Monday that it is reducing some of its rates so that those who are travelling can spend less when accessing the Internet or staying in touch with their families, friends or colleagues while outside the country.

Other customers can also avail themselves of non-stop data usage for as low as Dh35 per day while visiting more than 100 countries, including Australia, United States, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Thailand, France, India, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Spain and Switzerland, among many others.

Subscribers travelling within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, both prepaid and post-paid, are promised up to 29 per cent discount on data, outgoing voice calls to UAE, GCC and local destinations and outgoing SMS.

The special rates are effective from April 1, 2018.

“The new rates are introduced in coordination with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), to encourage roaming services within the GCC at affordable rates,” Etisalat said in a statement.

The new rates (in dirhams per minute or SMS/MB) are as follows:

Call type Effective until March 31, 2018 Effective April 1, 2018      Savings (%)
Outgoing call to UAE, other GCC  2.277  2.203 3%
Outgoing local call 0.918 0.881  4%
Outgoing SMS 0.257  0.22 14%
Incoming call 1.028  0.808  21%
Data 3.122  2.203  29%

Etisalat’s services are available in almost 213 countries. The firm has expanded its 4G LTE partners to 291 networks in over 120 countries, enabling subscribers to take advantage of the high-speed mobile data offered on 4G networks while surfing the Internet abroad.