Etisalat Group and Ericsson establish strategic partnership

Etisalat Group and Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) have signed an agreement to deploy the first-of-its-kind Unified Delivery Network (UDN) platform across the Middle East in 2017.

The revolutionary content distribution platform aggregates and exposes network capabilities into the public domain, allowing services to be optimised and monetised in new ways. In addition, the UDN platform offers service providers the ability to efficiently scale the delivery of over-the-top (OTT) services and high quality video content. As a result, Etisalat will be able to address the needs of both service and content providers in its markets.

Hatem Bamatraf, Chief Technology Officer International at Etisalat Group, said: "The growth of streaming media and high quality video technologies has ushered in a new era of content delivery. Partnering with Ericsson to deploy high quality content will enable us to offer our customers enhanced video quality of experience through seamless delivery, establishing Etisalat Group as regional leader in this area."

Ericsson's vision is to bring together the ecosystem of service providers and content providers to collaborate around how last mile edge delivery can enrich the consumer experience. New revenue streams and business models will be created through the seamless introduction of new services, enabling rapid innovation, cost savings, and faster time to market.

Petter Jartby, Head of Etisalat Global Customer Unit at Ericsson Region Middle East said, "The launch of UDN delivers a disruptive new business model that offers a win-win situation for all players involved with traffic delivery. UDN uses the service providers’ last-mile footprint to achieve amazing performance and open the opportunity for next-generation distributed cloud services. We look forward to deploying this first of its kind solution to the region together with Etisalat."