Du, Etisalat, the TRA and the future

According to The National, Du is (finally) soon going to gain access to Etisalat's telecommunications network...

The telecommunications operator du is set to gain access to the network of its rival Etisalat within weeks, ushering in a fresh wave of competition in the phone, internet and television market.

If the move goes ahead as expected, UAE residents will finally have a choice of telecoms providers regardless of where they live.

Etisalat has a monopoly on traditional telephones, internet service and cable TV throughout most of the country, while du services a small area of Dubai that includes newer neighbourhoods such as Dubai Marina and Media City.

“Welcome to competition,” Farid Faraidooni, the chief commercial officer for du, said this week.

The development will be a boon to du, which has been able to offer UAE consumers only mobile and landline services because of regulatory and technical issues.

Here are my personal predictions for broadband internet access and telecommunications in general in the next 12-24 months:

• Du and Etisalat will begin a price war and heavily reduce the cost of their bundles (i.e. internet/tv/phone bundles) in a short timespan in an effort to gain market share.
  
• We will see impossibly ridiculous combinations of high-speed internet with low bandwidth (like Etisalat's connections that you can only use for 6 hours at full capacity in an entire month) In light of bandwidth increases for internet connections it is likely (and already on the way to happening) that we will see people having to pay for additional bandwidth through their teeth (like Telstra in Australia
  used to charge 465 AED per additional GB). Because of these bandwidth restrictions we will be 'heavily reliant' on content provided by Etisalat / Du.
  
• They will make it harder to individually purchase services (i.e. a separate internet or separate telephone connection) and harder to purchase services with no obligations.
  
• They will both introduce things like yearly contracts, ETF (early termination fees) and start ramping up the fees so we can enjoy full duopoly greatness; the contracts will make it hard for us to move between Etisalat and Du. You can already see that Du's new low priced, high speed connections have a 12 month contract with a 100 AED early termination fee (in my opinion this isn't too bad)
  
• While the price of telecommunications will seem to come down, we will all be at the mercy of contracts with our telephone companies and will end up paying heavily for breaching them.
  
• Skype will still be cheaper.
  
• The TRA will probably say "no comment"
  

(Of course this is in many cases a worst-case scenario prediction and is just a prediction so take it with a grain of salt. But please do ask Du and Etisalat as much as possible before signing anything and research whatever services you purchase as much as possible before agreeing to anything)

Non Latin Character Domain Names Live

Via the BBC:

Arab nations are leading a "historic" charge to make the world wide web live up to its name.

Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called "country codes" written in Arabic scripts....

The introduction of the first web names using so-called country code top-level domains (CCTLDs) is the culmination of several years of work by the organisation.

Previously, websites could use some non-Latin letters, but the country codes such as .eg for Egypt had to be written in Latin script.

The three new suffixes will allow web addresses to be completely written in native characters...

The Emirates country code is امارات.

The only example cited (but not linked!) in the story, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, but a Google search yields the the URL http://www.mcit.gov.eg/. Has anyone have any examples?

FNC attacks internet-censorship loopholes

"The FNC report also blamed the TRA for failing to prevent the use of proxy software that allows people to bypass blocks on hundreds of websites classified as “forbidden”.

“There is also some software that allows downloading things without going through the filtering process,” said Sultan bin Hussein, a member from Umm al Qaiwain.

“Peer-to-peer software is not being blocked,” he said.

“We notice the effect of this problem in the crimes committed by children and violence among the youth. All of these crimes are influenced by the internet.”

Mr al Ghanim said it was not possible to block all “forbidden sites”.

“Companies that offer peer-to-peer services change their websites and there are thousands of them that keep changing,” he said. "

More here: Give us cheaper telecoms says FNC

Does anyone anticipate the TRA trying to block VPN's anytime soon?

You can read more about this at the Federal National Council website (google translate)

.il (Israel) TLD unblocked?

Has anyone else found the Israeli TLD to be unblocked from the UAE?
On my Etisalat connection it seems to be open.

Here's a URL you can try it on: http://www.google.co.il/

Etisalat announces 30mbps

Etisalat has just announced 30mbps internet through FTTH connections.

"Available in the FTTH connected areas and priced at AED 699/month, the new 30 Mbps package will also be made available for existing customers in the FTTH coverage area, who are keen on upgrading their account."

...
"FTTH will also allow Etisalat to launch a much faster package of 100 Mbps in the coming months"

Is anyone else worried that we might face monthly bandwidth caps with the introduction of these higher speeds? (It happened in Bahrain with the Boycott Batelco movement in 2006)

unblock flickr

The TRA asked for our feedback and here it is:

As we sit on the eve of having the worlds biggest video sharing website cut to shreds by a 500 word long list of censored keywords, aside from the obvious questions like who was paid to sit and compile these 500 words and did they get paid for doing so, I think it is high-time to ask questions about another site that was blocked, then unblocked, the blocked again, and then unblocked again and then finally blocked completely across the UAE in which status it has remained for the past 2 years.

It is extremely unfortunate that the TRA, Etisalat and Du, can’t find a way to unblock Flickr so that it may be used again by people in the UAE. It also raises a question as to whether or not they have actually tried. The usual excuse for flickr’s block is as-usual completely redundant and as-usual ‘nudity’, it also as-usual relates to someone being a bit lazy.
According to Khaleej Times which claims to be quoting a TRA statement:

“It does not have the technical facility of blocking prohibited contents, and it cannot be partially blocked; where such facility is available on YouTube, Facebook and other similar sites.”

It sounds like someone from the TRA didn't actually check on anything before making that statement; images actually MUST be categorized on flickr as being safe, moderate or restricted. This affects whether they show up in searches or whether they are publicly accessible by someone without a flickr/yahoo account.

Funnily, this is a strikingly similar policy to Google images, deviantart and several other websites, yet all of them remain unblocked; infact by the same standard prohibited images are impossible to block via Google images yet that remains unblocked and flickr remains blocked.

Also interestingly enough is this paragraph on the flickr help section:

“Note: If your Yahoo! ID is based in Singapore, Hong Kong or Korea you will only be able to view safe content based on your local Terms of Service so won’t be able to turn SafeSearch off. If your Yahoo! ID is based in Germany you are not able to view restricted content due to your local Terms of Service.”

I wonder how much effort has been put forward to have UAE-based id’s be unable to access adult material?
Anyone from the TRA care to chime in?
(braces for TRA/RTA/KHDA/RERA strategic response 101: “unavailable for comment”

Of course placing blame upon the TRA etc is one part of the problem, the other problem is you, yes you UAE-based internet users… You wouldn’t sit there and do nothing if facebook was blocked, yet when one of the largest photo websites on the internet gets blocked no one cares. Join this facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=83349217846 and help get flickr unblocked in the UAE.

FTTH

No its not a new abuse, though seeing where the origin is, it just might open a whole new door to witty new phrases.

FTTH stands for Fibre-To-The-Home technology. Etisalat's latest offering to provide data, streaming and video services straight to the home with one optic fibre cable.

The boys were in today installing this fancy new thingybob, and it should be up and running in 2 months.

I would be a tad embarrassed to wear something with that on it though!

Caching...

Is it just me, or are the blogger feeds slow in updating new posts? Also, comments and new posts take atleast an hour to show up on the blog, despite frequent refreshing.

UAE! What Are You Googling for?

What is the UAE Googling for? Just about 6 months ago, Google Zeitgeist listed UAE as one of 42 countries to record its most 15 popular Google search keywords. The following are the results (from November 2007 to April 2008):

Rank	Nov 07	Dec 07	Jan 08	Feb 08	Mar 08	Apr 08
1	الصكوك الوطنية (National Bonds)	Emirates united Club	سيارات (cars)	standard chartered	honda uae	مصرف ابوظبي الاسلامي Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank
2	قصص (Stories)	Arabic Dance	reliance	dodge charger	تلفزيون دبي (Dubai TV)	كير Care
3	شطرنج (Chess)	Wedding Cards	اشغال يدوية (crafts)	compass	krishna	المحقق كونان detective Conan
4	honda civic	Xmas messages	philippine star	guns	Proxy sites	philippine star
5	أغاني خليجه (Gulf Songs)	life	bed	فيديو (video)	(star academy TV show) ستار اكاديمي	رسوم cartoons
6	cheap flights	watch movies	icons	عجائب الدنيا (world wonder)	(designs) تصاميم	اغاني شعبيه Local Songs
7	dubai holding	Italy	intel	صور للبنات (girls photos)	philippine news	الأم Mother
8	NEWSالأخبار	Dubai immigration	ndianmasala	قوس قزح (rainbow)	NASA	صور صدام حسين Sadam Hussein photos
9	دروس الفوتوشوب (PhotoShop lessons)	Jumeriah village	حرف (H = the letter H)	white and black german shepard	cartoon network games	airlines
10	مترجم نصوص (Text translater)	UAE fourm for stock exchange	kerala chat	nokia n96	gulf news classifieds	gym
11	christmas cards	Nissan Patrol	air blue	cyprus	emirates driving institute	صور فراشات Butterflies photos
12	advertisement	Honda accord	جواد العلي (Jawad Al Ali)	download yahoo messenger	sandra bullock	cinestar cinemas
13	puppies	Hazza Bin Sultan	nikon	اغاني اطفال (kid's songs)	صور كلاب (dog photos)	make up games
14	خلفيات حلوه Screen savers	King Chat	مسجات حلوة (nice messages)	nissan patrol 2009	dubai world cup 2008	تعلم من أجل الامارات Learn for Emirates
15	job in dubai	nokia e90	العلم العراقي (Iraqi Flag)	افلام اجنبي (non-Arabic movies)	Angelina Jolie	مصرف ابوظبي الاسلامي Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank

So what can we tell from looking at the above keywords? The following are some of my observations:

• Nov 07 (#1): National Bonds .... All of a sudden people want to know more about them, why?
  
• Nov 07 (#6, #11, #13): Cheap Flights. Christmas cards, puppies .... Getting ready for Christmas vacation and preparing gifts, huh?
• Dec 07: No Arabic keywords listed .... Where were the Arabs at this time?
  
• Jan 08 (#5): Bed .... After Eid & Christmas, people are looking for beds ...
  
• Jan 08 (#15): Iraqi Flag .... Why? Something changed about the Iraqi flag?
• Feb 08 (#7): Girls photos .... Naughty!
• Mar 08 (#4): Proxy Sites .... I can understand that.
• Nov 07 & Mar 08 (#13 both): Puppies, dogs photos .... We have more dogs in UAE more than ever.
• Apr 08 (#1, #15): Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank .... Suddenly more popular ... Go ADIB!

What is your observation from those keywords?

Read Also:
Google Zeitgeist This Month for UAE (April 2008)
Google Zeitgeist This Month for UAE (March 2008)
Google Zeitgeist This Month for UAE (February 2008)
Google Zeitgeist This Month for UAE (January 2008)
Google Zeitgeist This Month for UAE (December 2007)
Google Zeitgeist This Month for UAE (November 2007)

Ships Impounded for Middle East Internet Cable Cuts

Although Egyptian authorities said that satellite imagery showed no activity around the cable that was damaged off of their coast, Dubai has evidence of ships nearby cables.

It looks like last week Dubai authorities impounded two ships who were spotted in satellite photos near the damaged cables around the time that they were cut. The ships were identified by Reliance Globalcom, whose FLAG Telecom unit maintains the cables, and which in turn notified the Dubai Port Authority.

Officially, the two ships, the MV Hounslow and MT Ann improperly dropped anchor near the cables and accidentally severed them. When they arrived in Dubai on February 19, the Iraqi and Korean ships were seized. Reportedly, the Korean ship paid 60,000 USD in compensation to FLAG Telecom for repair costs while the Iraqi ship is sitll being held.

Whether other ships accidentally cut the other three cables serving the Middle East and caused a loss of power to a sixth is yet ot be determined. ;).

The damaged anchor discovered at the site of one of damaged cables.
This photo comes from the FLAG website, two of FLAG's cables being among those damaged.

First day of Du proxy

Today marks the first day of internet censorship on Du internet connections; they have issued a public statement as follows:

"It is our constant endeavour to maintain the perfect balance between ensuring that all our customers' requirements are met, and that we comply with all the guidelines of the TRA, including those on internet content filtering.

The World Wide Web offers us great opportunities to get and share information and to communicate. However, it is imperative that when making use of this technology for its enormous benefits, we respect the moral, social and cultural values of the United Arab Emirates.

du will be blocking all content that is not in line with these values, effective from 14 April 2008. Due to the nature of the content filtering process, some harmless sites may also inadvertently be blocked. We request our customers' assistance in informing us when a site that they consider harmless has been blocked, by writing to safesurf@du.ae so we can look into the matter."

more here

Du censorship first began on the 23rd of March with the blocking of the Secret Dubai Diary website

According to the following Khaleej Times article, the proxy on Du is a result of a new "Internet Penetration Policy" (which as far as I'm aware hasn't been published publicly by the TRA yet);

"In a Press statement yesterday, Mohammed Al Ghanim, Board Member and Director-General of TRA, said, “Since du is a new company that has just started to implement the concept of monitoring in the best possible way, it has to comply with the policy within a month from the date it is announced.”

However, a TRA spokesperson clarified, “The policy actually means proxy. It will regulate the web content allowed in the UAE. Since du is new, it has to wait for the policy before it can buy the software to regulate its web content. Etisalat is already following the policy. Both telecom operators have to abide by the TRA regulations.”

Du begins blocking

Du has gone and gotten itself a proxy page!


The page that has been blocked? Secret Dubai's blog! Congratulations!

Thanks to anonymous for tip and screenshot

(reportedly blogger/blogspot is now working on Du connections once again--except for Secret Dubai's blog)

Keeping internet access safe from terror and danger

Gulf News has an interesting interview with an unnamed TRA spokesperson regarding the proxy; among the interesting information it has are the following paragraphs...

For starters the title of the article in Gulf News is in fact "Keeping internet access safe from terror and danger"

"Each of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Etisalat and du, are required by law to have a proxy programme where certain keywords are checked: sex, terrorism, dating, drugs, alcohol, pornography, and gambling, among others.

These keywords are mandatory by international laws in describing each and every single website."

Is anyone else aware of any international laws regarding keywords?

The final paragraph is quite interesting too...

"The big picture is to be developed and to be in the lead of this century. But knowledge and development doesn't mean ethic-free life or morale-free life. There are certain morals that the UAE government is obliged to protect."

Proxy unbloxy

Anyone finding that the proxy is down?

There seem to be certain areas of the sandlands where the proxy is down since yesterday, and the entire internet is available.

Long may it last ;)

The Cable-Cutter Mystery: Spies, lies, and "conspiracy theories" – what's behind the Middle East internet outage.

By Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com

[...Yet theories that this incident prefigures a US attack on Iran don't comport with the facts: Iran, far from being isolated by the cuts, may have enjoyed better connectivity as a result of the events. The areas hardest hit were Kuwait, Egypt, and especially Pakistan – this last being a likelier target for isolation than Iran, and certainly more current ....
Another, and far more plausible, theory is that the seemingly coordinated cuts resulted from efforts to tap into the cables – a spying operation. Go here for an exhaustive and very convincing case for viewing this as "special warfare.".........]

More here.

Another interesting post from the Galloping Beaver blog:

[....What does this have to do with anything? Well, first of all, the sheets and pages of information on USS Jimmy Carter's multi-mission capabilities have all disappeared off the US Navy's sites. Even the commissioning announcement at
Commander Submarine Group Two is gone.

So, at the risk of perpetrating a conspiracy theory, I will state that I am highly suspicious and until someone can point at USS Jimmy Carter snuggly alongside at its berth in Bangor, Washington, the Bush administration becomes as strong a suspect as any other possible perpetrator. There is also the fact that USS Jimmy Carter was due to become operational this year....]

More here.

I don't personally subscribe to conspiracy theories. But it's always interesting to analyze and speculate over this stuff. : )

"Conspiracy theories emerge after internet cables cut"

"Is information warfare to blame for the damage to underwater internet cables that has interrupted internet service to millions of people in India and Egypt, or is it just a series of accidents?

When two cables in the Mediterranean were severed last week, it was put down to a mishap with a stray anchor.

Now a third cable has been cut, this time near Dubai. That, along with new evidence that ships' anchors are not to blame, has sparked theories about more sinister forces that could be at work.

For all the power of modern computing and satellites, most of the world's communications still rely on submarine cables to cross oceans.

When two cables were cut off the Egyptian port city of Alexandria last week, about a 100 million internet users were affected, mainly in India and Egypt.

The cables remain broken and internet services are still compromised.

Telecommunications analyst Paul Budde says the situation demonstrates how interconnected the world is."

more here

Must be them pesky whales again

No ships were present when two marine cables carrying much of the Middle East's internet traffic were severed, Egypt's Ministry of Communications has said, contrary to earlier speculation about the causes of the cut.

The ministry had originally stated that a ship dropping its anchor on the two key cables was most likely responsible for Wednesday's cut in service that robbed Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India of most of their internet connections.

"A marine transport committee investigated the traffic of ships in the area, 12 hours before and after the malfunction, where the cables are located to figure out the possibility of being cut by a passing vessel and found out there were no passing ships at that time," said the statement.

Read the rest of this report

Similar Reports:
ABC News Australia
Khaleej Times

Go figure. I wonder if they checked for submarines?

Taking the Internet Seriously

For the past few years, we have grown accustomed to the annual month of Internet service disruption. Once it was the tsunami, then the earthquake in Taiwan and then a ship's anchor near Alexandria, Egypt. I don't recall hearing of New York suffering from Internet disruption as a result of a submarine cable being damaged or severed. No, I don't recall the UK or anywhere in Europe facing this problem.

So, what is it? They never have extreme weather conditions? Do they bury their cables deep enough that an anchor won't reach it? Or did they happen to invest in enough cables with redundancy in mind?

No one in the Middle East seems to be taking this seriously enough. You would think the first time it happens, people would realize this and start investing money on it. No, sir! It's just the Internet. Who cares? A country like Egypt has 3 cables connecting it to the world. Imagine that! Two of them damaged and now they are telling their citizens to ration their Internet usage.

So, aside from the fact that businesses are being extorted by telco's for Internet services (we are paying 10 times what we would have paid anywhere in Europe or the US for hosting services), they are unable to provide reliable connectivity. It is obviously not their fault alone. It is the entire region that doesn't care.

With the region being drunk with cash and an insatiable appetite for investments, may I suggest this: More fiber-optic cables to ensure we NEVER EVER have such a problem again?

I know we are suffering some major losses as a result of the current situation. Our business model relies on the Internet. Perhaps this region (including the UAE) is not ready for Internet-based businesses just yet. Time to relocate and maybe come back in a decade or so?

40% of the Internet is blocked in the UAE

According to media luminary Abdul Latif Al Sayegh:

“The internet blockage rate [of unwanted material] in the UAE has reached 40 per cent that is among the highest in the world.”

Al Sayegh’s remarks came at a conference on Emirates Media Freedom at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi.

Not really something for the nation to be proud of, is it?