du roaming coverage expanded to 350 networks

Dubai: Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du) has now expanded its roaming span to 350 networks in 125 countries, the company told Gulf News.

The operator that began operations in February last year has significantly added to the roaming network number of 300 it had four months ago.

Osman Sultan, chief executive of du, said, "Few telecom companies worldwide reach the 350 international roaming agreement mark in less than two years of starting operations. It is a new regional benchmark and a matter of exceptional pride for us."

While the operator is still behind the country's first operator, etisalat, which has roaming services in 509 networks across about 179 countries, du has plans to close the gap.

Fareed Faraidooni, executive vice-president, Commercial at du, said, "In days to come, we will continue to work hard to enhance our roaming footprint to cover more destinations."

Additionally, the operator has also activated over 200 data roaming agreements, allowing mobile internet, data and voice calling services in many of the covered destinations as well as around 75 3G roaming agreements, by which BlackBerry users can continue to use the operators services while roaming.

Pre-paid roaming

"Customers should expect to see the number of data agreements, 3G agreements and pre-paid agreements increasing as tremendously as they increased this year," the company said in statement.

Specifically on pre-paid roaming, the operator is expecting to grow its number of agreements at the same pace as experienced in the last semester of 2008. Fifty pre-paid agreements were launched during the second half of 2008.

However, a distinction lies in the services for the monthly plan and pay as go users. While the first can make and receive calls in all the international networks, the latter can only make outgoing calls in 55 networks.

At the end of the third quarter, the operator reached profitability, a full year ahead of schedule.

A Dh31 million worth of profit was made and the revenues for the operator increased by 157 per cent in a year to hit Dh1 billion.

Roaming span: On the go services