Our New Telco

Emirates Today carries a front-page report about the soon-to-be new rival to Etisalat, and said the move is 'raising hopes that service rates will be forced down due to competition'.

Well, we can hope all we like. We can even pray. But the sad fact is that the Telecoms Regulatory Authority has already ruled out a price war, and expects 'competition' to be on the basis of quality of service. Given the fact that the Federal Government owns more than half of Etisalat, will own 50% of the new company, and that both companies will continue to pay 50% of their profits to the government as a 'royalty', we, the valued customers (you bet we're valued - we pay more for these services than anyone else on the planet!), will continue to be ripped off.

When my daddy-in-law was here recently he was disappointed that his UK Virgin Mobile account wouldn't work. He suggested that while Richard Branson was in town, he (Branson) might pop down to Etisalat HQ and do some kind of a deal. I tried to explain our archaic telecoms monopoly/duopoly to the daddy-in-law, but he just could not understand it.

And I can hear you all saying 'another whingeing expat - if you don't like it, go and live somewhere else'. Well, watch this space.