Bring on the competition
Etisalat wants to improve competition in the market. What?
October 8, 2009 4:23 by kippreport
Kipp received an exciting piece of fiction on Thursday entitled: “Etisalat calls for Flexibility in Telecom Laws and Regulations for Positive Competition.” It’s a press release.
It appears that Mohammed Omran, Etisalat’s Chairman, “highlighted the role of laws and legislation in improving competition amongst operators.” However, Kipp believes that the best way to improve competition is to accept competition.
If our memory serves us right, Etisalat had a huge problem accepting du’s presence in the UAE market, because du ended Etisalat’s lucrative monopoly.
Right?
We’ll stop there. We don’t want to be blocked for saying too much.
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2 Comments
So the monopoly was ended and now we have two operators in the country regulated by a telecom authority, which sets rules and regulations in this sector.
You said that in order to improve competition is “to accept competition” ? Well, It is not up to them to accept competition or not to accept it. They HAVE to.
He was talking about how to improve the competition by more flexibility in laws and regulations, and you’re talking about them not accepting the competition in the first place. Your comments are just not related and are not helpful at all , and it seems to me that you are just being sarcastic, especially by describing the report as “fiction”
When prices are fixed by a regulatory body, then competition becomes limited, right? And to improve the competition, one way is to be more flexible in laws and legislations by allowing operators to adjust their prices so that they can compete more positively, right? This is what I understand from the report, and it is very right.
Get off your Etisalat-funded horse Emirian. The problem in the telecoms sector is exactly what Kipp has said – there’s no competition. Du and Etisalat are essentially owned by the same entity. Furthermore, the TRA has a ridiculous ruling that no telecoms operator can have prices that are substantially cheaper than another because (and I quote) “that would make it much harder for the more expensive operator to compete”.
If we had telecoms operators who were a)not owned by the same people and b)were free to set their prices as they saw fit, then we’d have proper competition and therefore cheaper prices and better services. When Etisalat says laws need to ‘flexible’, it’s not seriously challenging anything. ‘Flexible’ laws don’t help competition when the essential spirit of the law prohibits competiton – hence the entire Kipp point about accepting competition.
Most countries have at least 3 or 4 telecoms operators. Also most countries have better quality AND cheaper telecoms than the UAE. The two concepts are related, perhaps the UAE might like to try it? I’m sure there’s some enterprising Emirati out there who’d like to make even more money by ripping off the expats slightly less than his compatriots.