High speed broad band reversed

The year is 2008, the time is 12:06 a.m, I am trying to load the main page in my blog with no luck. The speed of the ‘broad band’ high speed internet is so slow that it takes ages to load a page. No, I am not in some remote part of Africa or a bottomless Wadi. I am living in Dubai, paying more than US $ 60 a month for a 512 kb connection and getting no better than a dial up one. The provider is Etisalat, the big monopoly in the UAE. The victims are people and businesses who have to live with this lack of service in a city that prides itself with being at the forefront of the Middle East. When mobile and tele communication was deregulated in the UAE a couple of years ago, people thought that competition will not only drive prices down but will result in better services. It turned out to be anything but a deregulation. Aside from the mobile phone network, where all the offers and counter offers are done, residents and businesses have no choice when it comes to choosing their landlines or their internet connection. The city has been divided between the two companies. If you live in one part of town, you can only avail of Etisalat services, if you live in another you can only use Du. This approach led both companies to create monopolies in their own geographies for these services. Imagine you have a 512 kb download upload speed and all you get is 20-50 kb/sec instead. If businesses are to succeed and if the city wants to truly become a leading metropolis in the region, the tele companies have to rise up to the challenge and upgrade their services while decreasing the prices to be inline with what is offered in the international markets and main cities worldwide.

~ by rafickd1 on December 18, 2008.