Du spreads its TV wings in the UAE

▶ Competition for TV services can only be a good thing for the UAE

Competition is good for business and great for customers. That is perhaps the most basic tenet of economics tells us. But it’s rarely that simple, as anyone who’s received a bill for broadband in the UAE will tell you.

The country’s telecoms market has been on paper a duopoly since 2007, when du first launched services in Dubai, bringing to an end the dominance of incumbent Etisalat.

Things have worked well in the country’s mobile sector, with both operators’ networks covering the UAE in its near entirety, enabling competition on tariffs and offers.

It’s a different story for broadband and TV though; du’s physical broadband infrastructure (over which it also delivers TV services) is the only real option for Dubai residents, while those elsewhere in the country use Etisalat.

While customers have been able to choose the other operator’s fixed line and broadband services since 2015, few have done so, given that TV services continue to be monopolised by each provider in their respective areas.

Limited competition means that customers have to pay higher fees for broadband and TV; a survey in November from UK-based comparison site Cable found that UAE broadband was the 11th most expensive in the world, behind countries including the Cook Islands, Brunei, Papua New Guinea and Burkina Faso.

The launch yesterday of new home internet and TV packages by du for customers outside Dubai is therefore a major milestone for the UAE’s telecoms industry, even if it falls a little short of full competition.

The operator’s new packages will let non-Dubai customers watch live and catch-up TV via Over The Top (OTT) applications including du View (which offers local UAE channels) and OSN’s Wavo, which gives access to the pay TV provider’s premium channels.

The new offering falls short, quantity-wise at least, of what’s available to du’s Dubai customers, who are able to watch more than 600 channels via the operator’s traditional TV services. Customers outside the emirate will have to make do with less than 300. Full liberalisation of the UAE’s TV market is still a distant prospect, with the country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority yet to permit operators to use each others’ fibre networks to offer TV services.

Nevertheless, du’s new service offering for customers throughout the UAE gives nonDubai customers a genuine alternative to Etisalat for the first time in the crucial TV and broadband market. That choice, which Etisalat will hopefully soon extend to Dubai residents, can only be good news for customers.