The TRA Signed 10 MoUs with Companies and Authorities in the UAE to Enhance Information Security Standards, Announced a License for "Etisalat" to be Provided for the First Time and Other Activities
- Licensing "Etisalat" as the first certification service provider in the UAE
- Announcing the UAE Arabic National Domain Name .emarat ( .امارات )
- Awarding "Sha'abia Cartoon" TV Series
- Donating 50 National Domains (.ae)
- Signing 10 MoUs with companies and authorities in the UAE
During the participation of the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) in Gitex Technology Week, the TRA engaged in a number of activities at its stand at GulfComms Exhibition, where it presented a number of its initiatives such as the UAE Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT), the .ae Domain Administration (.aeDA) and the ICT Fund.
The TRA activities encompassed signing 10 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), representing the aeCERT, with private and governmental institutes and authorities to enhance the information security standards and protect the IT infrastructure from threats.
Hence, the TRA signed MoUs with the Emirates Institute for Advanced Technology and Science; WATANI program; Abu Dhabi Retirement, Pensions & Benefits Fund; Sheikh Zayed Housing Program; Dubai eGovernment; UAE University; Emirates Group; the General Secretariat of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Dubai; Dubai Holding; and the Department of Naturalization & Residency – Dubai. The TRA also granted "Etisalat" a license as the first certification service provider in the UAE.
The TRA activities during Gitex Technology Week included the announcing of the UAE Arabic Domain Name .emarat ( .امارات ) as part of its strategy to support and enhance Arabic content on the Internet, where the TRA has announced its plan to launch .emarat ( .امارات ). This step has been made under the new directions of ICANN - the international corporation responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses - which allows the use of languages other than English as an equivalent to the domain names for countries. However, ".emarat" ( .امارات ) is the Arabic equivalent for the currently used domain name ".ae". The Ministerial Council for Services has previously approved the usage of ".emarat" ( .امارات ) as a domain name for the UAE in Arabic.
In its turn, the .aeDA of the TRA awarded the stars of UAE's Sha'abia Cartoon series by offering them 5 years' free registration with a new domain name "sha3bia.ae". The move is part of the TRA strategy to encourage creativity among the youth in the UAE. Furthermore, the .aeDA announced a new initiative to donate 50 distinguished Emirati websites, national domains under .ae for a whole year free of charge to encourage them to use the UAE national domain name (.ae) and to highlight their Emirati identity on the Internet. The agreement is between the TRA and the Emirates Internet Group (EIG) for the .aeDA to cover the fees of registering 50 UAE websites under the national domain name (.ae) for a year, where the EIG chooses the websites that the conditions of the donation apply upon.
In this respect, H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, assured that the MoUs and the activities of the TRA during Gitex Technology Week will contribute in achieving a number of the objects for which the TRA and its initiatives were established.
The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) was established in 2004, where it could place a competition framework in a record time after introducing competition to the UAE telecom sector. The TRA also succeeded in launching many initiatives such the ICT Fund that funded the ANKABUT Network to link all UAE university through an academic Internet network, the .aeDA, the aeCERT, Be'tha Scholarship Program to sponsor distinguished national students to study telecom engineering, the National Mobile Recycling Campaign, the Echo of Silence, and Emirates Telescope.
