TV viewers will soon have more options

Dubai: Television viewers may have a variety of new options in their homes this year as the UAE's two telecoms prepare to roll out their new services.

E-vision, the television arm of etisalat, announced its plans for the upcoming years at the Middle East Cable, Satellite, Broadcast and Communications Exhibition last week.

"What we are trying to show at the exhibition is, one, the increase in channels... and the other service we are demonstrating is video on demand," said Humaid Rashid Sahoo al Suwaidi, E-vision's CEO.

He said the company is planning 80 new channels over the next year, which will raise the total to 300. However, the channels that will be introduced are still being determined. He did say that E-vision was seeking channels that would cater to all of its three main demographics, which are Arabs, Asians, and Western expatriates.

Al Suwaidi said that the company would also offer about 500 hours of "on demand" programing, which would include movies, series and sports, that could be instantly selected from an onscreen menu. He said E-vision plans to launch the service in October, but it will initially offered to only 20,000 subscribers in order for the company to get a better understanding of what viewers want to see. The company is still evaluating the price of the service.

Al Suwaidi said that he expects subscriptions to E-vision to grow as much as 50 per cent over the next year.

He also said that while E-vision was currently capable of providing High Definition content, it would be two years before the region began to see regional content in high defintion.

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, more commonly known as du, said via email that it had partnered with Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft to implement Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV, and services such as Video on demand, Pause Live TV and Personal Video Recorders were also being considered.

Initially, the services would be provided to du's fixed line customers in Dubai. The company said it plans to roll out the service gradually to the rest of the country over the next few years.

du also said it will be HD ready this year, but the service was still under development.