The service demonstrated allows for relevant information based on your location, enabled by Visible Light Communication (VLC)

United Arab Emirates: UAE telecommunications provider du, Philips Lighting, world leader in lighting, Vision Valley, leading system integrator and service provider in the region, announced today at GITEX the launch of their new innovative Visible Light Communication service (VLC-service) which is a highly customizable location based service.

The three companies representatives signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at GITEX to mark their collaborative effort to launch a new location based service in the UAE market. du intends to launch the location based service in the market and is planning first a commercial pilot. The platform brings together the patented VLC-technology of Philips Lighting and the highly secure and innovative management platform and connected mobile apps from Vision Valley.

The new service provides relevant information and promotions based on the location of smart phone users, all in a single mobile application.

For venue owners, such as retailers, restaurants, museums, shopping malls, banks, showrooms, exhibition centres this service provides the opportunity to enhance the customer experience and create new means for upselling and cross selling of their products and services. This is simply done via smart LED-lights that are VLC-enabled.

Owners of the venues will have the capability to maintain in real time the content they wish to show to their customers in every area of their venue where a smart LED-light is in place. This content can be presented in multiple languages to the app users, whom will have the capability to easily share the content from the application for any given spot with their friends and family.

Speaking at the signing ceremony Farid Faraidooni Chief Operations Officer at du said: Our new partnership with Philips Lighting and Vision Valley enables du to become the first global operator to launch the VLC-service. The potential of this platform goes beyond optimizing the customer experience. Not only it empowers our customers to serve peoples dynamic needs in real-time but also to improve the life of UAE residents by converting large parts of the countrys downlights into smart ones that continuously provide access to useful information and services to users based on their given location.

Goktug Gur, CEO of Philips Lighting Middle East & Turkey, commented: At the heart of Philips Lighting is a philosophy of innovation and as such we are proud to be partnering with du and Vision Valley, two organisations that we feel share with us a common vision towards bringing smart technology and innovation to peoples lives. The VLC technology is part of our broader offering of transformational applications and business intelligence, that delivers the essential capabilities enabling our customers and partners to offer exceptional and highly personalized user experiences through human centric solutions that we always strive to develop.

Maher Elfadel, Chief Executive Officer at Vision Valley added: Vision Valley is a home for young talents as well as deeply rooted technical professionals. We carefully listen to our market by maintaining strong partnerships with innovative operators such as du and well-established inventors such as Philips Lighting to fine tune our strategic direction. That way we make sure our R&D professionals savour every step of development to come up with the best of breed and remain at the for front of innovation. No better environment, strong team, right partners, and the most dynamic city - Dubai, the home of smart services and forward thinking. 

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About du
du is a vibrant and multiple award-winning telecommunications service provider serving 9 million individual customers with its mobile, fixedline, broadband internet, and Home services over its 4G LTE network. du also caters to over 100,000 UAE businesses with its vast range of ICT and managed services. Since its launch in 2007, du has many UAE firsts to its credit, including introduction of Pay by the Second billing system, IPTV and self-service portal.

du is ideally placed to support the realisation of UAE Vision 2021 and transformation of Dubai into a Smart City. du is also the official strategic partner of the Smart Dubai Office and the platform provider for Smart Dubai. Following the successful testing of the Middle Easts first Internet of Things (IoT) network, du is on course to complete deployment of its IoT network in 2016.

Brand Finance ranked du as the 12th most valuable brand in the Middle East in 2016. du previously won the coveted Brand of the year title by Superbrands Middle East in 2013. The company has been recognised with several other awards such as ISO 27001 certification of Managed Security Services and having the distinction of opening UAEs first LEED Platinum Certified Green Shop. du also has the unique distinction of the first telecom in the world to release Sustainability Report based  on GRI-G4 guidelines in 2014. du is also credited with dus world-class teleport is the largest of its kind in the Middle East and ranked among the top teleports in the world by World teleport Association.

du is 39.5 percent owned by Emirates Investment Authority, 19.75 percent by Mubadala Development Company PJSC, 19.5 percent by Emirates Communications and Technology LLC and the remaining by public shareholders. Listed on the Dubai Financial Market (DFM), the company trades under the name du.

About Philips Lighting
Philips   (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting products, systems and services, delivers innovations that unlock business value, providing rich user experiences that help improve lives. Serving professional and consumer markets, we lead the industry in leveraging the Internet of Things to transform homes, buildings and urban spaces. With 2016 sales of EUR 7.1 billion, we have approximately 34,000 employees in over 70 countries. News from Philips Lighting is located at the Newsroom, Twitter and LinkedIn. Information for investors can be found on the Investor Relations page.

About Vision Valley:
Vision Valley is an innovative technology provider with headquarter in Dubai and an expanding operation in seven different markets in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Since its infancy, the company had a strong focus on innovation and cutting-edge technologies in selected lines of business with special focus on Wireless technology, Business Intelligence, Smart cities; featuring IoT and Software development. Vision Valley is currently leading a number of innovative life-changing projects in the region combining most of these lines of business.

Saugat Chatterjee
PR Lead (B2B) Commercial
du
Mobile: +971 55 936 7045
Email: saugat.chatterjee@du.ae

Yasmeen Al Shyoukh
Associate Communication Manager
MSLGROUP
M:+ 971 4 367 6287
Email: yasmeen.alshyoukh@mslgroup.com

Press Release 2017