| This page has been visited | times since being posted on 25/Feb/1999 |
25th February 1999
Dear Concerned Person at Emirates Internet,
The most immediate concern of Emirates Internet users is the non-availability of an Unlimited Plan.
The dedicated 64KB ISDN line at Dhs 4,000 is only an option for businesses that have a local LAN with multiple users.
What we need is an Unlimited Rate on both a Normal Dial Up and a ISDN Dial Up account, where we pay, what we suggest is, about Dhs 200 per month (US$55). With this account we should be able to use the internet as much as we want. The toll free access number should remain intact with this plan. Presently people like me and my friends who use the Internet a lot end up with bills of between 1,000 and 2,000 Dirhams a month. That as you know is not an acceptable price to pay.
All the comparative information on Internet Services around the region, especially Kuwait, Saudi and Lebanon show that Etisalat is charging way too much by not having this Unlimited Plan. (http://etisalat.charges.too.much.net/compare.html)
This for now is our main concern.
On top of it all, having Proxy Servers that are often excruciatingly slow and sometimes don't even respond because of congestion, means we are paying Etisalat for every minute we wait for the Proxy to respond. Couple this with access speeds that do not correspond to Etisalat’s advertised specifications, and we end up doubly frustrated. We customers end up paying Etisalat for extra time spent connected due to its own faults. Read what Etisalat themselves have said (around August 5, 1997) about Proxies being used to "speed" up service: (http://www.emirates.net.ae/proxy.html)
"This has resulted in decreased response times for retrieval of Web documents. Etisalat has introduced a new Proxy Cache Service which eases such situations and provides you improved response times and performance by reducing congestion on the Internet. "
"Q. Won't the Proxy system become a bottleneck?"
"A. The proxy cache is
based on multiple Sun 4000 computers running Netscape Proxy Server. The proxy servers are
attached directly to our 34 Mbps national backbone and the 4 Mbps aggregate international
connections."
"At present, the proxy servers get over 100,000 requests daily without breaking into a sweat."
The Proxies were introduced to censor offensive sites. We all understand the reasoning behind this policy, and that it must be followed here. This be should stated clearly as the sole reason for the Proxies.
Etisalat has a policy of forcing their customers whose lines are too busy to get more lines. It is a condition of their service. In all fairness Etisalat should apply the same to themselves. If the proxies are too busy and the bandwidth too little, Etisalat should increase these. They have had plenty of time. They have known for a long time now that the Internet usage in the UAE is overloading their system.
It is assumed that Etisalat has made enough profit from its Internet users over the past two years to immediately implement an Unlimited Plan. There is no reason for further delays. This is what is frustrating the paying customers.
Etisalat proudly states in its motto : "We are at your service," (http://www.etisalat.com/a_story.htm) and their vision of the future states : "will not only enable them (our customers) to remain productive and compete globally " and "assisting and developing cost-effective technologically." (http://www.etisalat.com/a_story2.htm#Story7)
If you look at the page Internet in the Persian Gulf: United Arab Emirates and scroll through it, you will find this passage:
"Etisalat is the .ae national TLD manager, and was the organization responsible for bringing the Internet to the Emirates. The company is eager to offer the latest and best services as part of the UAE’s campaign to be the premier commercial and services center in the Gulf, and also by the need for revenue generation. The Internet was initially viewed as just another value-added service that could be established with minimal cost (e.g., the service would have been profitable with only 1,000 subscribers)."
Putting in mind that Etisalat will soon have almost 100,000 subscribers, it is becomes apparent that, what was first considered a value added service being provided to Customers quickly became a major revenue earner. As in the cases where Etisalat has lowered its International Call rate tariffs to levels closer to what other countries charge, the time is surely here for a new Internet subscriber plan to be introduced.
The Case for a reasonable Unlimited rate is beyond strong.
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