Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, also known as Etisalat, is the sole telecommunications carrier and internet service provider in the United Arab Emirates. Etisalat provides all type of telecom services in addition to cable TV service. Etisalat is currently moving to a 3G and NGN Concept in its infrastructure.

Etisalat currently has a monopoly on all of the telephone,Internet and Cable TV usage originating from the country, except in certain Dubai freezones such as Dubai Internet City and modern housing developments.

In May 2005, the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority approved the formation of a new telecoms company, which will effectively end Etisalat s monopoly, creating a duopoly. The new $1.1 billion telecoms provider will be 40% owned by the UAE s General Pensions and Social Security Authority and other state interests, with the remaining shares earmarked for private sector shareholders including an initial public offering, which may or may not be open to foreigners. The new company, if to ever see the day of light, would likely use Etisalat s current copper telephone cables and Internet link system. Speculation is ripe about whether or not the new company will be any different from Etisalat, and whether or not it will censor the internet by default.

According to WAM (official news agency of the United Arab Emirates), At the end of September 2005, the number of lines in service are 1,222,905 for telephone, 4,305,821 for mobile and 4,698,17 for internet. Mobile penetration now exceeds 95 per cent.

= eCompany =

Although owned by Etisalat, eCompany (formally Emirates Internet & Multimedia), provides the Internet for the majority in the United Arab Emirates.

For home users, eCompany provides dial-up connection, ISDN connection, cable and DSL connection. The Cable and DSL connections are known as Al Shamil . Al Shamil offers speeds from 256K up to 2Mb.

eCompany was the sole Internet service provider of the United Arab Emirates, but temporarily a second ISP, Sahm Net, which was unaffected by eCompany s censorship, operated in certain new housing developments and Dubai Media City and Dubai Internet City. Recently Sahm was acquired by DIC (Dubai Internet City), it is unclear whether they are now routed through the UAE s proxy. DIC is a subsidary of the UAE government and as such the difference s between it and Etisalat are probably very trivial.

The dial-up and ISDN connections are billed by the hour, whereas the Domestic/Residential Cable and DSL connections have a fixed monthly rate depending on speed, whereas Business connections are quite legendary for being billed depending on the amount of users and the usage of the connection.

Etisalat recently has experienced supposed international submarine cable cuts . These have brought Etisalat s so called redundant network to it s knees on more than one occasion. On occasion s when the bandwidth throughput of the country have been affected, Etisalat prioritises http requests (web surfing) and basically blocks all other traffic completely. Etisalat thinks that either an anchor from a boat dragged on the seabed and damaged the cable, or a ship sank and fell on the cable damaging it.

= Censorship =

EIM blocks sites that may contain:

# Pornography # Religious content and/or content that is against the religion of Islam # Content that criticises the rulers of the United Arab Emirates # Information about Cracking, phreaking, etc # Information on how to get around the internet block # Websites offering P2P services/torrent files # Dating and matrimonial sites # Gay and lesbian sites # Basically the entire Israel (.il domain) TLD # Other material that EIM, or the Government of the United Arab Emirates considers objectionable # Websites that offer VOIP telephony (such as Skype) at subsidised rates and other services that Etisalat can earn money

Etisalat uses the American company SecureComputing, similarly to other GCC nations. They purchase lists of websites as classified by the SecureComputing company. According to TimeOut magazine, Dubai, the UAE government pays 9,549,800 AED each year to the SecureComputing company, the equivelant of 2.6 Million US Dollars, (this is worked out at the rate of 2$ USD per connection).

On visiting a website that is blocked, the user will redirected to http://proxy.emirates.net.ae (only accessible from the UAE)

The SecureComputing system categorises sites into one of 62 categories, including pornography. Anyone can check what a site has been classified and suggest an alternative or categorize an unlisted website using the URL: http://www.securecomputing.com/sfwhere/ ; It is believed that Etisalat have partial control over the list.

Etisalat also individualy bans websites by either IP address. In some cases, when alternative access is available (Etisalat does not proxy the HTTPS protocol, so if a site opens https ports it will always be available), they may remove the site from their DNS servers entirely, such as http://www.antiproxy.com. This ISP notably bans The Best Page in the Universe, a popular webpage written by a writer who writes many rants and many self-aggrandizing pieces.

Recently eCompany/Etisalat incorporated iZone, a system of WiFi hotspots in central locations, such as shopping malls, restaurants, and shisha cafe s. iZone can be utilized by either purchasing prepaid cards, which offer 15 AED/hour access rates (about 4.5 USD an hour), or if they are a dial-up internet user, they can use their previous existing account and pay 10 AED an hour (about 3 USD an hour), or if they are a broadband user, they can use their account and gain access for 6 AED an hour (about 2.5 USD an hour).

See also: Censorship in cyberspace

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