Du, the United Arab Emirates’ new telecommunications operator, has revealed its plans to strengthen strategic relations with Cisco, by exploring the use of the Cisco-enabled Virtual Service Provider (VSP) model.

The new model will offer bundled packaged services to meet the voice communications, data services and network security needs of small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs).

The agreement was discussed at a meeting between Cisco chairman and CEO John Chambers, du chairman, Ahmad Bin Bayat and Osman Sultan, chief executive officer at du.

The Cisco VSP model will help accelerate du’s customer acquisitions and revenues by blending its existing capabilities with those of Cisco, along with its ecosystem of mobility partners.

du expects to extend the VSP offering and the related products and services to SMBs and residential markets.

Through its co-operation with Cisco, du will also deliver world-class solutions over a pervasive, intelligent and end-to-end IP broadband infrastructure. du and Cisco intend to continue to work together in key technology areas and drive the evolution of du’s internet protocol (IP) next-generation network architecture, said a top company official.

Osman Sultan, chief executive officer, du said, 'Our association with Cisco would ensure that we continue to deliver first-class next generation technologies that are customer-centric. These next-generation IP network developments will enable us to continue to deliver intelligent and customer-centric solutions through new go-to-market models.'

'Through our collaboration with Cisco, we are setting the stage for the introduction of world-class services as well as increasing the value these services have to offer,” he added 

“Broadband is a key driver for the future growth of the telecom market in the region. Embarking on such a relationship with a strong global player like Cisco is another step for du to bring intelligent communication solutions to the UAE,” added Sultan.

Sam Alkharrat, managing director of Cisco Gulf and Pakistan said service providers no longer relied on voice as the single driver for revenue generation and were now aggressively tapping into the new wave of rich interactive services to attract new customers, while creating high-margin revenue opportunities.

“We’re proud of our history with du and we hope that such market-moving strategies will help enable du to expand its services across the UAE and wider Gulf region, not just with their traditional SMB customers but existing multinationals, to meet new customer demand.” Alkharrat noted.