On January 11, Alcatel-Lucent announced that it has been picked by one of UAE's largest provider of telecommunication services, Etisalat to help in speeding up the process of deployment of its countrywide fiber-to-the-home, or FTTH, network.

Under the multi-million Euros deal, Etisalat will be making use of Alcatel-Lucent's popular and award-winning Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology in order to effectively connect 50,000 household and business consumers.

Via the GPON technology, Etisalat will be providing residential and business customers all over the country with simultaneous access to many High Definition television channels, in addition to a Video on Demand library. Also, the new network will allow users to surf the internet about 16 times faster than the current speed offered.

"Etisalat is always keen to stay at the forefront of innovation in order to constantly provide our customers with the most attractive and advanced telecoms services. Etisalat’s FTTH roll-out in the UAE - branded eLife - positions Abu Dhabi to become the first capital city in the world with 100% fiber deployment by the end of this year", said Essa Al Haddad, Chief Marketing Officer for Etisalat UAE.

With the development, UAE is all set to become one of the first countries in the world to to have a countrywide coverage of the FTTH network by 2011.