Etisalat Turns 50: Remember Landlines, Modems And Your First Mobile Phone?

There was a time when one telephone served an entire household, important phone numbers were committed to memory and making a call sometimes meant waiting your turn.

Then came the mobile phone, the unmistakable screech of the dial-up modem, home Wi-Fi and, eventually, a world in which work, payments, shopping, entertainment and conversations with family all moved onto a device in our pockets.

As Etisalat marks 50 years, Khaleej Times is looking back at that transformation through the people who lived it.

Signals & Stories: 50 years of a connected UAE is a five-part series tracing how the way people communicate has changed alongside the country itself, from the first household landlines to smartphones, 5.5G and the emerging age of artificial intelligence.

Over the next two months, the story will unfold across Khaleej Times platforms, with each chapter revisiting a different era of connectivity through archive material, reader memories and everyday experiences.

Rather than tell the story purely through technology milestones, the series will focus on the moments, habits and memories that accompanied each new era of connectivity.

What was the first telephone in your family home? Do you still remember your first mobile number? What did it feel like to hear a modem connect to the internet for the first time? And when did Wi-Fi go from being a novelty to something nobody in the household wanted to live without?

Khaleej Times will combine those memories with photographs, headlines and other material from its archives, creating a record not only of how communications technology developed, but how people experienced each change as it happened.

“The inter-linking of this country-the networking of the UAE-is story that lives on both a technological and a deeply personal plane,” said Ted Kemp, chief content officer of Khaleej Times.“It's unfolded over decades, and thanks to our deep written and visual archives, we're uniquely positioned at Khaleej Times to tell that story and to show that story. This project is a labour of love and memory-of the nation, of its people and the times that have defined us.”

Five chapters of a connected UAE

The series will unfold across five consumer-led chapters, each looking at a different period in the UAE's journey from shared household telephones to constant connectivity:

Remember the landline? The opening chapter returns to an era when one telephone could serve an entire household. It will revisit memorising phone numbers, waiting near the phone for important calls, asking permission to use it and calling relatives in another emirate. Alongside those memories, the story will explore the expansion of the UAE's early fixed-line network and communications infrastructure.

Remember your first mobile phone? As phones moved out of the home and into people's hands, communication became increasingly personal. The second chapter will look back at first handsets, first mobile numbers, prepaid and top-up culture and the novelty of carrying a phone at a time when doing so was still relatively new. It will also explore how mobile communication became part of work, family and social life.

Remember the modem? For a generation of early internet users, getting online came with its own soundtrack. This chapter will revisit dial-up tones, slowly loading web pages, first email addresses, SMS culture and the days when an internet connection could be interrupted when somebody used the telephone. It will look back at the period when the internet began moving from novelty to necessity in the UAE.

Remember when Wi-Fi changed everything? The arrival of home Wi-Fi, smartphones and apps changed the relationship people had with the internet. Video calls brought distant relatives onto a screen, streaming changed entertainment and social media became increasingly embedded in everyday routines. This chapter explores the period when people stopped consciously "going online" and simply began living connected lives.

Remember when everything moved to your phone? The concluding chapter brings the story into the present while looking towards the next transformation. It will examine an era in which phones have become central to payments, entertainment, services and communication, before looking ahead to 5.5G, cloud technologies, AI, robotics, autonomous technologies and eventually 6G. It will also chart Etisalat's wider evolution as the communications industry itself moves into the AI era.

Taken together, they tell a story that is bigger than the devices themselves. Fifty years on, the technology has changed almost beyond recognition. The reason people use it has remained: to remain connected.

Etisalat offers free data to customers as it celebrates 50th anniversary UAE's Etisalat marks 50 years, returns to founding brand name Etisalat to expand global connectivity capacity 25-fold by 2030

MENAFN06102026000049011007ID1111771785