ADVENTURES IN DUBAI: YOUR FAVOURITE NUMBER ONE BLOG BRITISH DESIGNER LIVING IN DUBAI TELLS (NEARLY) ALL
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Blue Screen of Censorship for TECOM
The papers today are awash with stories related to telecoms: Emirates Toady headlines with a story about rumours of a third entrant into the retail market in the UAE. TRA denies all knowledge.
Gulf Snooze carries a couple of stories, one that says conventional telecoms companies need to embrace VOIP or die (I paraphrase). The other brings us the good news that du (the new telco, soon to start mobile operations) will be connecting TECOM to the proxy any day now and therefore that Media City's tagline 'Freedom to Create' becomes even more meaningless than it has been up till now. Interesting to note that du, the monopoly-breaker, will still have a monopoly within TECOM, Emaar and Nakheel properties. Du is 20% owned by TECOM Investments, who about a year ago took over SahmNet, Emaar's own telco. As TECOM is wholly-owned by Dubai Holdings (who also own propery developer Nakheel), they are given preference in supplying telecoms infrastructure to all new Nakheel developments.
Of course, it is not fresh news that the Broxy will be imposed on TECOM (collectively Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City and Knowledge Vamlet). But what is interesting is the disingenuous tosh used to justify it. Gulf News says:
Asked why users were not free to choose what sites they visit, Mohammad Al Ghanem, director general of the TRA, said the TRA was not out to "police" the citizenry of the UAE.
"We are not inventing a procedure or a process," he told Gulf News. "This is implemented in every single country but with different limits and different categorisations."
Mr Al Ghanem, that is not an answer...
Al Ghanem said the TRA desired to avoid any negative impacts on businesses residing within the free zones, and promised exemptions for companies with a legitimate interest in keeping unfettered internet access.
Breaking with the commonly perceived notion that the free zones had their own sets of telecommunications laws, [Mohammad Al Gaith, the TRA's manager for technical affairs] said the reason the free zones weren't previously covered under the filter was technical, not jurisdictional.
New telecom operator du provides Internet service in the free zones, and problems had arisen over implementing the proxy filter over du's network.
Mr Al Ghaith, I have been a tenant at Dubai Media City since shortly after its inception 6 years ago. I can tell you that the reason these free zones were not previously proxied was neither technical nor jurisdictional. It was a deliberate decision by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum who, in his wisdom, realised that these entities would not be very attractive to potential international clients if their Internet access was censored. That reason is still valid today
Can somebody please explain to me why the Telecoms Regulation Authority thinks it is fit to tell me, or any other Internet user, what sites we can and cannot visit? I know there is a cultural thing with the locals and some others, but surely if they want a restricted Internet then they can request and be given that. For everyone else, we pay more than twice as much for Internet access than anywhere else in the real world, and I think you, the TRA, should respect that and let us have (more or less) unfettered access.
I am sick to death of being treated like a child by these people. Apart from anything else, their obsessive, frequently unreasonable, often illogical blocking of millions of websites, including some of the world's most popular (Flickr again) makes me cringe with embarrassment. We are supposed to be the most free of all Gulf States, but we block Flickr because some wastafarian tells us to.
I despair. And my FTP and HTTPS are still not working.
Our belovéd Telecoms Regulation Authority has just announced that we have until December to sort out our mobile phone books. Currently, all mobile numbers in the UAE have the prefix '050'. If you are calling a mobile number from another local mobile, you can drop the prefix. But from December, that prefix must be dialled. Partly this is because Itisalot is running out of capacity on 050, and they are going to introduce 056 if they get any new subscribers. And of course, du will need a prefix of its own.
I met somebody who works for du the other day. The conversation went something like this: du guy: Hi, my name is zzz and I work for du, and that's all I'm going to say about that. me: So I'm hearing that du could use another year or two before they launch? du guy: zzzzip. me: ?? du guy:
Hmm. I actually sent an email to du at the end of September, explaining that I had been under the impression they would launch by the end of September and wondering what was actually happening. Sadly I have not had a reply yet. Neither has 7Days, who were getting themselves into a bit of a strop about it a while ago. Anyhoo, the current zeitgeist says they'll get something on the market by the end of this year. But really they'll need two or three years to get their act together. I'm disappointed by the current radio silence: they started off well, but have been completely absent recently. This does not inspire confidence.
The UAE's new telecom operator is now out of the closet and its name is 'du'. I was utterly unsure about the name yesterday when it hit the papers, but today I've got over the surprise. I had hoped we would get a fruit-based name, but this will du. It's catching, see!
There's a good interview in 7Days with Osman Sultan, the CEO of du, who comes across as a smart cookie. He's not an engineer, his background has been in customer-facing roles. And if there's one thing that Etisalat has traditionally been ultra-hyper-mega crap at, it's dealing with customers. So already, I'm likin' it.
Then there's this: EITC (du's official name) took over the telecoms arm of TECOM last month. TECOM is the management company for Dubai Internet City, Dubai Media City and Knowledge Hamlet. TECOM itself had earlier swallowed up SahmNet, which was Emaar's telecoms arm for residents of The Hills, The Lakes, The Greens, The Meadows, The Puddles etc. Osman Sultan has said they will be re-vamping the 'customer interface' for these customers as soon as possible.
This is great, for us and for du. They get to practice on a smallish bunch of customers before rolling out the system to the whole country. And for us in the Cities it means that if we have a problem with connectivity there is now the possiblity that they will send us a technician who has actually seen a computer before, can solve the problem without lengthy calls to whoever it is back at the office who keeps the brain, will not suggest formatting the hard disk and will not leave until the job is done.
It will also mean that I will never again receive an email entitled 'Hazardous Condition Warning'. This is the standard email that TECOM telecom sends out whenever there's going to be a spot of downtime. Honestly, I almost died the first time I got one of these - they might just as well have said 'bomb alert, you are dead, sorry'.
And maybe they can sort out a billing system that users can understand. For VOIP telephone and fatband Interweb at my office in Media City I pay a fixed monthly fee (which is still way too much). I get a bill every month, and it sometimes has extra bells and whistles for mysterious stuff ('2 paperclips: attendance at site for 16-year-old trainee who wasted two hours of your time and still didn't solve the problem: posting 1 letter to Lithuania'). What it never has is any kind of accumulated balance, so if I don't pay one month it doesn't remind me about that outstanding amount, it just tells me about the amount for the previous month. They've never actually cut me off (and I'd have to kill them if they did, given the huge security deposit that they're not paying me any interest on). But it's irritating when somebody finally realises that there's a bunch of outstanding bills and they suddenly insist that they must be settled in the next ten minutes.
Du mobile, du broadband, du texting, du buy. Hmmm. Du is the long-awaited brand name of Emirates Corporation For Telephones And That Internet Thing And Faxes And Telegraphs Establishment (Branch) (Satwa) PJSC.
I read this article in Emirates Today about how the new Emirates Corporation For Telephones And That Internet Thing And Faxes And Telegraphs Establishment (Branch) (Satwa) PJSC will be competing with Etisalat a little bit on price. Not very heartening, chaps. But my eyeballs popped out of their sockets when I read the concluding paragraph:
Mohammed Omran, CEO of Etisalat, said: “We have never really acted as a monopoly. We have been competing indirectly with the rest of the Gulf, but now the competition will be direct.”
If that makes any kind of sense to any of you good people out there, please explain it to me!
Conflicting reports in some of today's papers. Emirates Today says the new telco will not be competing on price. 6Days says it will. Whatever. Having seen the stream of drivel emanating from the TRA ever since it was established, it is clear that the main thing that telecoms users want (prices on a par with the rest of the world) will not come easily. The main reason for this is the 50% profits surcharge that both companies must pay to the Government. Even though the Government is already a major shareholder in both companies and presumably gets a dividend from the profits.
The imaginatively named Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company has a great opportunity here. I hope they don't blow it. I hope they will listen to what consumers say they want, and convince the TRA to let them do it. So here's my wishlist:
Significantly lower prices for everything.
Great customer service: counter staff who are trained to treat customers as deities rather than potential criminals.
Lots of small offices in convenient locations (I could not believe how many high street shops the likes of Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and Virgin have in the UK - and no queues). And/or lots of payment machines that accept payment for everything.
Serious reduction in red tape. If irrelevant rubbish like tenancy contracts and passport copies going back three generations is required at all, then these things are recorded once and are never needed again. It's a phone company, not a branch of the Secret Service.
A coherent PR strategy that does not treat customers like morons, and does not lie to them.
Did I mention lower prices?
Deposit-free international roaming.
Optional proxy for Interweb access.
And a nice fluffy food-based brand image like Apple, Orange or Egg. Cheese, Banana, Shawarma. Something like that.
Not much to ask, is it? Fluffikins the Phone Company is expecting to start services in the latter half of 2006. They have a daunting task ahead of them, but I wish them the best of luck, I really do. They're gonna need it.
Emirates Today carries a front-page report about the soon-to-be new rival to Etisalat, and said the move is 'raising hopes that service rates will be forced down due to competition'.
Well, we can hope all we like. We can even pray. But the sad fact is that the Telecoms Regulatory Authority has already ruled out a price war, and expects 'competition' to be on the basis of quality of service. Given the fact that the Federal Government owns more than half of Etisalat, will own 50% of the new company, and that both companies will continue to pay 50% of their profits to the government as a 'royalty', we, the valued customers (you bet we're valued - we pay more for these services than anyone else on the planet!), will continue to be ripped off.
When my daddy-in-law was here recently he was disappointed that his UK Virgin Mobile account wouldn't work. He suggested that while Richard Branson was in town, he (Branson) might pop down to Etisalat HQ and do some kind of a deal. I tried to explain our archaic telecoms monopoly/duopoly to the daddy-in-law, but he just could not understand it.
And I can hear you all saying 'another whingeing expat - if you don't like it, go and live somewhere else'. Well, watch this space.
Du mobile, du broadband, du texting, du buy. Hmmm. Du is the long-awaited brand name of Emirates Corporation For Telephones And That Internet Thing And Faxes And Telegraphs Establishment (Branch) (Satwa) PJSC.
Conflicting reports in some of today's papers. Emirates Today says the new telco will not be competing on price. 6Days says it will. Whatever. Having seen the stream of drivel emanating from the TRA ever since it was established, it is clear that the main thing that telecoms users want (prices on a par with the rest of the world) will not come easily. The main reason for this is the 50% profits surcharge that both companies must pay to the Government. Even though the Government is already a major shareholder in both companies and presumably gets a dividend from the profits.