Cheap VoIP calls to UAE, Still a Distant Future!

The Telecommunication sector in United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the modern and getting stronger among the Arab region. The sector is governed and supervised by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) which was established under UAE Federal Law by Decree No.3 of 2003. However, for quite a long period of time, the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation known as Etisalat remained the sole telephone and telecommunications service provider in UAE and enjoyed monopoly on business and personal telecom services. But with the entry of other telephone and internet service provider company named ‘du’ in 2006, this monopoly was turned out in duopoly where new player was allowed to provide mobile service across the UAE and internet and Television services to some of the free zones. However due to service providing in different geographical areas, both the companies do not compete for customers and enjoy as having monopolies.

With the modernisation of the infrastructure and advent of the latest technologies, the sector is expanding rapidly, the sustained growth of customer base, rising purchasing power and government’s favourable policies and initiatives for the sector are adding the fuel to the growth of sector. However there has been a shift in the service usage and preferences by the customers. Earlier, the voice services via fixed line and mobile remained the major income generators for the operator which is now witnessing downtrend over the past few years. On the other hand, the internet and data services have started to add the larger share of revenues of operators. According to TRA, UAE had over 2 million landline subscribers, over 16 million mobile subscribers and over one million internet subscriptions. The penetration of mobile service is highest almost 200 % which represents one of the highest in the world. Also the high speed internet service subscribers are increasing at faster pace.

Though having one of the most modern infrastructures and growing sector, the telecommunications services in UAE remained one the costliest and also the sector is governed by stringent laws. One of the stringent regulations is related to internet content filtering in many social, political and security areas. As a result, many low cost calling solutions are banned in UAE, one of such is VoIP telephony, which allows users to make phone and video calls over land lines and mobiles using internet for free or at the lowest costs compared to charge by traditional network operators.

The VoIP regulations was first introduced in UAE way back in 2006, banning the use of service except for national calls to protect their telecom operators as expatriates make up significant portion of population. Due to this though having one of the highest expat rates in the world, the friends and relatives of expats back home unable to make cheap international calls to UAE. All the VoIP players, are banned in UAE however very few global players make it to provide cheap VoIP calls to UAE, one such player is TringMe, leader in making HD voice quality calls to landline and mobile phone calls with one of the cheapest calling rates in the VoIP calling industry allowing its subscribers to make cheap calls to UAE.