Telephones and space travel

HERE in the United Arab Emirates, it has been a week of talk about telephones and space travel. As I write, our much-maligned telecommunications company, Etisalat, has announced that it will be taking management control of PTCL ‘in a few weeks’. Etisalat is giving the impression that all problems which arose following its purchase of a 26 per cent stake in PTCL are now resolved.

The news comes as Etisalat is, for the first time in its 35-year history, facing competition for telecom services in the UAE market. Judging by the comments of callers on an evening phone-in programme on a Dubai radio station a few days ago, the competition is long overdue. The comments by callers to the programme — which have been echoed in numerous press articles in recent week — overwhelmingly said that competition was long overdue. Etisalat is accused of exploiting its monopoly, which has manifested itself in high prices, a limited choice on services and the slow introduction of new technology.

It is also currently being criticized for not allowing cheap telephone calls to be made over the internet through providers such as Skype and goes so far as to prohibit access to the Skype site. Not surprisingly, Etisalat’s profits have been massive in comparison with other international telecoms providers.

And so there is much excitement about the entry into the market of the cumbersomely entitled Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company.

Thankfully the company has said it will be known simply as ‘Du’. A spokesman said that Du didn’t mean anything in Arabic or English and had been chosen as a catchy marketing name (although it means ‘you’ in German, ‘of’ in French and ‘yes’ in Danish). He failed to point out that Du is a diminutive of Dubai, and this omission has led to speculation that Du will develop as a Dubai company as opposed to the Abu Dhabi headquartered Etisalat.

Du is promising to shake up the market by competing on customer service and products, although it says it will not get into a price war, which is already suggesting that a cartel may operate, which would not be surprising considering that the major shareholder in both companies will be the government.

Some cynics say that Du has only been set up to create the impression that the UAE telecoms sector is competitive, as demanded by the World Trade Organization, thus precluding foreign players from entering the market and still enabling big profits to be made — which can then be used in buying up shares in other operators, such as PTCL.

The UAE — Dubai in particular — makes no secret of its intent to diversify with investments around the world. Dubai’s port operator, DP World, is in the final throes of taking over the British ports and ferry operator, P&O. There may be a slight delay in this transaction because some politicians in America — where P&O manages six ports — say they don’t want Arabs running their ports for ‘security reasons’.

However, this is only likely to be a minor hiccup, caused by internal American politics, and in the meantime, Dubai has signified its intention to expand its interests in aviation by forming a $15-billion company, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise.

The initial aim is to get involved in airport development and operation throughout Asia, aircraft leasing and financing, education and training and later there may be opportunities for aircraft manufacturing. So, should any opportunities arise for managing Pakistani airports, do not be surprised if Dubai expresses an interest.

But while Dubai’s aviation ambitions make for fascinating speculation, I was much more intrigued by the announcement that it will soon be possible to blast off into space from the small emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, an hour’s drive away.

RAK, as it is known here, is a small emirate with big ambitions and is currently involved in serious developments in tourism, property and commerce. It also has a large, but underused, international airport and this will be the location of a ‘spaceport’.

Behind the project is a US company, Space Adventures, which was earlier responsible for orbital flights on Russian spacecraft by three rich tourists who paid $20 million each for their rides. The RAK spaceport will cost $265 million and the RAK government has already put up $30 million.

The spacecraft, named Explorer, has been designed in Russia and will be lifted off the ground by a carrier aircraft and launched in mid-air. If anything goes wrong, it can glide back to earth.

It will offer flights for up to five people who, says the company, will only need four days of astronaut training before taking off. They will be carried on a sub-orbital flight, 100km above the earth’s surface, above most of the atmosphere and into space, but not reaching the speed needed to orbit the Earth. Passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness during the flight of an hour or two.

Space Adventures, who are also planning a spaceport in Singapore, say their programme will open up space travel to many more tourists, although it appears the tourists will have to have a spare $100,000 to buy a ticket.