#Dubai Forums

Note: Packet shaping and bandwidth limiting became even more severe again around 14 April. Only http website downloading seemed to work ok. Everything else is again down by up to 75%.

Early May 2005 update

It is now several months ( Ref 1 / Ref 2 ) since Rate Limiting has been secretly (without informing their customers) implemented in the United Arab Emirates by the monopoly Internet Service Provider, Etisalat, (Emirates Internet & Multimedia). Meanwhile they still levy their full charges for their outrageously priced internet service.

When pushed hard to justify the slow speeds on any traffic apart from web browsing throuh their proxy, they give a tongue and cheek reply insinuating that:

... you might be facing slowness while playing Online games or using P2P applications ...

... and that it is due to ...

... a minor problem with some International links ...

They go on to say that browsing will not be affected. Finally they will pretend that their engineering is working to resolve the problem soon.

They then have the gall to ask us to accept their apology for the inconvenience caused by this slowness.

The fact is Etisalat is lying.
They are applying Rate Limiting locally as well, where the route never leaves EIM's servers.
This is not being done due to any International Link problems.
It is being done at a local level for all connections.
It is being purposely done by Etisalat for reasons they are not revealing.

Here are some possible reasons:

• To save money (bandwidth used) on the many thousands of home DSL connections they have been issuing recently.
• To reduce the bandwidth being used by the thousands of hacked computers in the U.A.E.
• To try and stop VOIP

The Internet is not only about web browsing and online games and P2P file sharing applications.

Here are some commonly used services used which are being "Limited"

https: Any website that works using Secure Browsing (https)

OnlineBanking and Share trading and similar applications

OnlineShopping

SMTP (POP3): Downloading mail from any non browser based email server (example a POP email server) except mail.emirates.net.ae (mail.eim.ae)

VPN Virtual Private Networks

Telnet

FTP: Downloading directly using FTP - that is any traffic using a dedicated ftp server that cannot be configured to use Etisalat's proxy.

Free:

I see it too in all the apps that I use. Due to the nature of my job, I'm online 24x7, and nowadays the bandwidth is pathetic. Forget about gaming (which I don't ever do) or p2p (which I use occasionally), just picking up mail from a server in the US takes ages.

As for online banking, I've almost given up.

The question is, what do we do about this? Knowing this country and Etisalat, there's very little we can do to fight this.

O

My advice is to immediately send an email to help@emirates.net.ae demanding a refund for internet charges levied since end Feb to the present and demanding a written answer by email. Then call 8006100 every day to complain. Every call you make is logged and becomes part of your record that you have complained. Follow up with reminder emails every other day.

Ask all your fellow (friends) who are network admins to do the same. When the noise gets loud enough they will start to panic at the bad publicity.

However the quickest way to get action is if they are publically humiliated, which they strongly need to be considering their dishonest actions.

For this a few news services need to start carrying the story of customers who are angry that they are being cheated even after paying amongst the highest internet rates in the world to one of the highest earning companies in the world in a city where the government is encouraging the use of internet and high tech applications for commerce.

Without all this happening, they will try and give you the run around, use their usual ploy of telling you it is your problem only and that no one else is complaining.

If you keep insisting for an answer, they will grudgingly tell you it is due to an international link problem and that it will be fixed in a few days. They have used this "few days" line now since the early March - so for over 2 months now - it will be fixed in a few days.

Considering all factors and that Etisalat are so carefully wiholding the truth and not replying honestly - this strongly appears to be purposely applied Rate Limiting to earn Etisalat extra money.

How much more do they want to milk from their customers? Maybe all they can before competitors start appearing.

This is true, in Gulf News a couple of days ago there was an article.
Last year Etisalat made a profit of 9.3 Billion Dirhams WHOA
All this money going right into their pockets, its pretty clear they are ripping us all off.
They had this promotion thing for adsl, save 2500dh whatever the silly thing was. heaps of people signed up, is it possible that their computer systems are so out of date that they cant keep up with all the customers they have?

Complaining a bit too much will probably raise flags and well find ourselves without internet at all. As they own the news agencies we cant go and complain to them. Theyve stopped taking complaints, along with etisalat via phone and email. So what can we do?

I tried posting a complaint in the Feedback section on their homepage, but it doesnt seem to be workin. There's always an error. It seems like they're not interested in viewing or listening to any complaints.

i dont think the cable network is affected, i for one haven't seen too many slow downloads.

Like i said man, they have stopped taking complaints, via email, via phone or whatever else.
Etisalat will not take complaints, and neither will any news agencies like gulf news or 7days.

Perhaps we should ring up that radio station 106.00FM with their viewpoint thing they have and complain there, cuz thats live on air.

I am not sure what Etisalat is upto but I am so frustrated right now.
It's been nearly a month and I'm still getting horrible latency & spikes in online games. And the worst part was that Etisalat did everything to convince me that the problem was at my end or with the game servers.

Now. whenever I call them I get the "it's a problem with the international link" crap. I am tired of getting the same canned response over and over again.
I would have changed ISPs in a heartbeat if there WAS a choice.

There is nothing wrong with my line I get 60kb download rate on local sites but p2p, online gaming and browsing to some extent is horrible.

omfg you sons of....
im trying to update counter strike. ive been here for like 2 days or whatever
its updating at 2KB/s if im lucky. its goes and it stops then it goes again, the most ive had is 3-4KB/s. I HAVE 1MBPS ADSL FFS.

THIS IS PATHETIC ETISALAT
STOP LIMITING OUR G'DAMN INTERNET
YOU GUYS ARE FRAUDSTERS

Every 3 hours or so the net goes dead too, nothing, zilch, nada. They were going on today in gulf news about how great they are. what a lie man they are screwing us out of our hard earned money.

hi all,,,i wanna say that etisalat limitting our p2p downloads& we dont now about this,,,,they telling us that they have an international link problem,,,but i'll tell etisalat that what they are doing iz it legal?cheatting us?...can we do something about this?...can we take this situation (service cheatting) to court?..

/me stands up and hails with the rest of the ppl who are against ETISALAT )))

Source AMEInfo

Who is commiting a crime again...?? erhhmmm

Hi friends.

The Speed is back )