The telecom giant Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considering offering services based on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a low-cost web-based communication technology, the Gulf News reported on Saturday.

In the UAE, where VoIP services are blocked, the technology has become a cause celebre for many expatriate residents desiring an affordable means of communicating with families back home.

As banning VoIP is losing a battle, Etisalat is studying how it might offer the technology to consumers. "VoIP has really reduced revenue for telcos, and some countries are even banning it ... But you cannot sustain such a ban. It's coming." Nasser Salim, Etisalat's vice-president of network development, was quoted as saying.

For the government, the telecom regulator, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), has said that VoIP would be allowed only by the two licenced operators in the country, Etisalat and Du.

The deployment of advanced networking technology would provide the technical foundation to offer VoIP service and create more revenue streams for Etisalat to justify offering a service that eats away at traditional voice call revenues, Salim said.

The technology, called next-generation networks, is based entirely on the Internet Protocol (IP) standard and would also enable Etisalat to offer services such as video-on-demand and triple play, or the delivery of TV, internet and fixed line calling through one pipeline and consolidated on one bill.

Such services would lessen Etisalat's reliance on revenues from voice calls and make it easier to embrace this popular but controversial new technology that has found widespread adoption in other parts of the world.

"We're looking at the impacts and to see if there is a need in the market," Salim said. "Once we have next generation networks, then there is no (technical) issue moving to VoIP."

Source: Xinhua