Etisalat today announced it has achieved over 600 roaming launches with operators around the world including over 450 GPRS connections.

This is the highest number of roaming connectivity of any operator group, an accolade which will help Etisalat derive greater added value from its international wholesale network as it establishes the region’s first ‘Smart Hub’ in UAE, said a statement.

The figure was presented by Ali Amiri, executive vice president, Carrier & Wholesale Services at Etisalat, during the annual Carrier’s World meeting taking place at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers, Dubai.

Amiri was delivering the keynote address in which he described the drivers that were encouraging other mobile operators to outsource their international connectivity requirements to a larger partner.

Amiri said: “Today there are two categories of wholesale operator – those that provide basic connectivity and those that go beyond this and provide services. With the growing international competition, there is only one position that an experienced and mature operator should seek to occupy - that is in providing extra ‘smart’ values by offering access to its assets and resources around the world.”

During his note Ali Amiri presented Etisalat’s Smart Hub strategy which includes five essential components – a content hub; a capacity hub; an IP hub; a mobile hub and a voice hub.

“Etisalat is the first operator in the Middle East to offer a full suite of eMobile services through our Mobile Hub offering. One of the most important is our Roaming Hub, which allows any operator to plug into our network and immediately enjoy the same number of roaming agreements that we have ourselves. This is proving extremely popular with operators across the region and who are looking to differentiate themselves in a sustainable and cost effective manner,” Amiri continued.

Etisalat also discussed the importance of hosting content locally. Not only does this provide regional operators with reliable and fast access to gaming, video and other content and services, but it also encourages loyalty and helps to differentiate the wholesaler’s offering, he said.

“The wholesale business today is not just about helping send content from one part of the world to the other. We are aggressively pursuing a localised content strategy to ensure that the major content providers reside here in the UAE thereby reducing the amount of time it takes to access and increasing the volume of business from regional operator partners,” Amiri said. – TradeArabia News Service