Osman Sultan

'Every country needs a second telecom's operator,' says Du CEO Osman Sultan, who launched the highly successful MobiNil in Egypt in 1998. 'The customer needs choice, regardless of the financial equation.

'Clearly there has been a political decision to open this market to a second telecom company. But we realize that we face very strong competition from Etisalat, and that launching against a company with such a high level of market penetration is virtually unheard of, and it is not going to be easy.

'We have a great deal of respect for Etisalat as a strong regional player with a very deep pocket. We will not be getting into a price war with them as such cut-throat competition would not be in the interest of either company.'

500 staff

Mr. Sultan has assembled an impressive team of 500 staff, partly through the takeover of the Tecom telecommunications company that formerly operated Dubai free zone networks as well as Emaar's former Sahm Telecom network, and has 19,100 customers. Now the objective is to launch a 2.75G GSM mobile network across the emirates in the second half of 2006, and 3G in urban areas of high demand; followed by an advanced fixed line network across the emirates.

'We want to be different and I think it is not too much to say that we want to be better,' says Mr. Sultan. 'And that goes for the entire customer experience: From how they see us, to their interaction with our team. You can see this in our marketing for Du, our new branding. We will have to be different to make an impact.'

'I will admit that we not reached this level of experience since our takeover of Tecom's triple-play system on January 1st but we see this as our biggest challenge.'

IPO March 4

Mr. Sultan is unable to comment on financial projections due to the start of the IPO process. However, he notes that with a paid-up capital of $1.1 billion Du has sufficient funding to roll out its networks and that the company will not receive any of the proceeds of the IPO which will go to the founder shareholders who are selling a 20% stake in the group to UAE nationals only.

In the pre-IPO phase 50% of ownership was in the hands of the UAE government, and the remaining 50% split equally between Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development Company and Emirates Communications Technology Company. Post-IPO up to 20% of the company can be owned by foreign individuals and institutions that will be allowed to buy shares in the Dubai Financial Market.

Mr. Sultan's own enthusiasm for this start-up company and the UAE is clear: 'I took this job on because I believe that the momentum of growth in the UAE is something special, and that with this depth of talent and acceleration of development we can really do something worthwhile. It is a very exciting time to be a part of a new launch in the UAE.'

Meanwhile, the UAE can also look forward to 'Broadband everywhere' according to the CEO of Du: 'Broadband is the future: we have very ambitious plans for the Internet. You should have Broadband access to your information from any device wherever you are whether that is music, video or news content.

But what about the possible introduction of a proxy server in the media free zones? Mr. Sultan says he has not been instructed by the regulator what to do about a proxy server yet, and will follow whatever the orders are from above.