UAE-based telecommunications company, Etisalat, will participate in the Informa IP&TV Forum Middle East and North Africa, taking place at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai, today (November 1) and 2.

It is also the strategic operator partner and the largest exhibitor of the forum which will bring together regional and international operators, satellite providers, cable providers, content aggregators and broadcasters.

Etisalat will showcase the latest developments in IPTV and broadband TV and is seek to establish partnerships with content providers and telecom operators, a statement from the company said.

Rashid Al Abbar, vice president, home products marketing, Etisalat, said: “We are a major sponsor of this event as we believe in the importance of the industry. Etisalat has invested significantly in its infrastructure and this has enabled us to become the partner of choice for both telcos who are looking to expand the availability of TV services to their customers, be it over a managed or a broadband network, and content providers wishing to monetise their content to hundreds of thousands of IP connected homes and millions of wirelessly connected smart phones.”

“Due to our advanced nationwide Fiber (FTTx) network, we are the first operator in the region to offer eLife, the IPTV service name of Etisalat that delivers over 350 channels, and 600+ video-on-demand movies, to nearly 100 thousand customers today.  We are also the first operator in the region to offer OTT (over-the-top), eLife OnWeb, where we have more than 30 unique on-demand only channels which represents 1000’s of hours of content being delivered through six devices and any broadband connection in the UAE.”

Etisalat’s smart OTT-hub and carrier and wholesale teams will support the delivery of one or all of the 350 live TV channels and 600+ movies that are part of the IPTV service to any telecommunications company or ISP that connects to its network or smart OTT-hub, the statement said.

The hub will also enable the reliable and fast delivery of content from partners that connect their content either directly or indirectly via their own content management system (CMS), to the Etisalat Media Gateway (EMG), it said. – TradeArabia News Service