UAE telecoms firms Etisalat and Du have agreed on a deal to share their fixed networks, said Du’s chief executive officer, Osman Sultan, during a conference call with journalists.

Over the past few years, the rival operators have heavily competed in the regional mobile market, but competition has not yet taken off in the fixed-line business.

Currently, the firms do not offer their television, broadband and fixed-line services in the same districts, meaning that customers are unable to choose between providers. Etisalat holds the monopoly in most of the areas in the UAE, while Du operates in newer districts.

A deal to share networks would allow one operator to use the other operator’s network for a fee, has been under discussion for years but frequently faced delays because of “technical difficulties”.

Sultan said “all components” have now been agreed on, though some commercial factors are still under discussion. He added that he does not know when the agreement would come into effect as other parties, including the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), will need to approve the deal.

The TRA recently issued a draft imposing open network access for bitstream access products for residential and business markets.

“The name of the game is that every person, house, office and business in the UAE should have complete choice of all the services in the telecoms sphere,” said Sultan. “We need to push it. It’s moving into the next phase and we are eager to do it. We are taking into account potential expansion and significant opportunities ahead of us. Today, [acquisitions are] not on the table, but that doesn’t mean we should not start looking at expansion. There are several options, nothing specific [that is being considered].”

Du has 578,026 fixed-line subscribers, a significantly lower amount than its 6,653,905 mobile users, according to figures from its second quarter of 2013 financial results.

The operator’s net profit, at AED474m ($129m), increased 1.28 per cent in the second quarter of this year. It marks an increase of 45.64 per cent year-on-year. Revenues went up 12.05 per cent year-on-year to AED2.66bn.

Du announced it will distribute a special dividend payment of AED0.10 per share and start an interim dividend payment of AED0.12 per share, subject to shareholder approval.