Emirates Telecommunications Corporation Etisalat Uses TANDBERG

It’s safe to assume that leading telecommunication providers know what they’re doing when they compare brands of communication equipment. So when the Emirates Telecommunication Corp., or Etisalat, decided to install an internal video communication network, corporate ITC directors around the Middle East took note of which manufacturer it chose. It chose TANDBERG.

“People tend to follow Etisalat,” says Hesham Herzalla, the company’s Chief Engineer for Network Services and Data Switching Development. “We tested various products before settling on TANDBERG. That was four years ago, and TANDBERG’s products still represent a great challenge for all its competitors.

Since that initial deployment, Etisalat has upped its investment in visual communication endpoints several-fold. Employees can now choose from 48 TANDBERG video systems spread among all of Etisalat’s regional offices in the United Arab Emirates.

Headquarters in Abu Dhabi, Etisalat is a beacon in the Middle East, providing leading-edge voice, wireless, data, Internet services and other telecommunication services to a fast-growing customer base.

The telecom’s own employees use video communication in many ways, from regular group meetings to one-on-one employee conferences. Mr. Herzalla says that Etisalat’s engineering staff, marketing specialists, and section managers are among its heaviest video communicators, saving money on travel and improving productivity. They talk and share materials among themselves while maintaining frequent visual contact with Etisalat’s many subsidiaries and international partners. The company’s human resources personnel in Abu Dhabi use the TANDBERG systems to interview job candidates around the world.

More than 30 of Etisalat’s video systems are high-bandwidth TANDBERG 6000s and TANDBERG 7000s. The largest conference rooms feature elite TANDBERG 8000 units, with twin 50-inch plasma monitors. Mr. Herzalla says most of the video meetings bring together people from three or more places. TANDBERG’s Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) actually permits Etisalat to link up to 16 video and 16 audio sites simultaneously.

The Dubai-based Etisalat Academy, which employs the TANDBERG Director system for rich multimedia presentations, needs all the transmission and functional capacity it can get. It educates thousands of Etisalat employees and outside professionals per year in telecom and information technology, business administration and related fields. It also hosts a series of international seminars, conferences and workshops. The Director unit has a 67-inch video display and the ability to link to remote sites at up to 4 Mbps IP and 2 Mbps ISDN. Video meetings and presentations at the academy and throughout Etisalat’s far-flung domain are scheduled and administered centrally through the web-based TANDBERG Management Suite.

“TANDBERG has definitely met our expectations,” says Abdulrahman Omran, a Network Services project based on testing turned out to be 100-percent correct.”

He says TANDBERG scores higher than the competition in ease of use, picture quality (even at lower bandwidths), audio quality and microphone sensitivity. Etisalat employees often use the DuoVideo feature, letting them display PC documents or other inputs on one screen while continuing to converse eye-to-eye on the second.

“The systems look great, too,” Mr. Omran says.

About TANDBERG

TANDBERG is a leading global provider of telepresence, high – definition videoconferencing and mobile video products and services with dual headquarters in New York and Norway. TANDBERG designs, develops and markets systems and software for video, voice and data. The company provides sales, support and value-added services in more than 90 countries worldwide. TANDBERG trades publicly on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker TAA.OL. Please visit www.tandberg.com for more information.