Etisalat has positioned UAE among the first five countries in the world and the first in the Middle East and North Africa to have 3 Dimension (3D) TV.

The company launched the service on June 1.

A recent report from Informa Telecoms and Media, a leading provider of business intelligence to global telecoms and media markets, confirmed UAE’s position among the first five countries in the world to launch the 3D TV service, said a statement.

The service was launched in France, Belgium and Portugal in May 2010 and in Switzerland earlier this month.

The service is a strong indication of UAE’s network readiness attained through Etisalat’s advanced fiber-optic network which is one of the most advanced projects in the UAE and the world, and also one of Etisalat’s biggest investment in infrastructure, said Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, group COO of Etisalat.

“Becoming the first to launch the 3D TV service in the region is a natural and eminent advantage of this network”, he added.

The development of Etisalat’s fiber-optic infrastructure in the UAE is in progress and is planned to be completed in 2011, as scheduled. Khalifa Al Shamsi, senior vice president of marketing at Etisalat highlighted, “High Definition or HD has been a remarkable technology that delivers high quality of home entertainment. With Etisalat’s launch of 3D TV, a new era of home entertainment has now started in the UAE. Our customers will experience this and will feel the difference when they have more channels and more 3D content to enjoy in the near future.”

3D TV service is available for Etisalat’s triple play eLife customers and to its E-Vision TV service customers without any additional fee at this stage. All customers subscribed to any of these service packages can now enjoy viewing TV in high-quality 3D on their 3D enabled TV sets.

In the first phase, Etisalat customers will enjoy watching the Al Jazeera 3D channel that currently broadcasts sport activities from around the world and will also broadcast the FIFA World Cup.

New customers or current subscribers who would like to avail of the new service can do so by upgrading to Etisalat’s eLife triple play Premier package (16MB) or Max package (30MB) and catch the FIFA World Cup excitement.

In addition, customers can also opt for subscribing to 3D TV service and HD on a stand-alone service from E-Vision, said the statement. – TradeArabia News Service