Let's play Monopoly

The local telecomms monopoly continues to push its broadband special offer. Al Shamil, 'Surprisingly fast at amazing low prices' is a limited period offer that Etisalat has been plugging hard for months with no sign of the advertising campaign abating in the near future.

Why is Etisalat continuing to peddle the 'amazing low prices' that are clearly anything but low? Is it entirely because there is a total lack of competition?

A cursory comparison with broadband offers in the UK easily demonstrates the magnitude of Etisalat's less than realistic price structure. Aside from a 'mere' 2Mbps being the maximum speed on offer, Al Shamil is typically between two and three times the cost of the average broadband rates offered in the UK.

Or are British broadband providers cutting their own throats? Somehow I doubt it.

I have not included the effects of British 17.5% Value Added Tax. Neither have I considered the costs of wireless modems, installation, free or reduced rate months, or any bundled software.
I would however concur with Etisalat's claim that Al Shamil broadband is 'amazingly fast'. Compared with the dial up that typically runs at about 3kbps, even a 256kbps would feel blisteringly quick.

However, until Etisalat proposes a more realistic broadband pricing structure I shall continue with ye olde dial uppe at home. As my monthly internet bill is usually around AED 50 (less than £10) it is questionable whether I need broadband at all. If I do need a broadband connection I can always take my laptop to Starbucks and use wireless broadband at the same hourly rate as home dial up.

I contacted Etisalat through their official feedback website on 7th March:

"All Al Shamil broadband monthly rates are typically between two and three times those on offer in UK. A more realistic pricing structure (say Dh80/month for 256kbps to Dh120/month for 2Mbps) would make Al Shamil a much more attractive proposition."

Unsurprisingly, more than three weeks later I have yet to receive a response.

A bout time

Experiences dealing with Officialdom have led me to submit for consideration a new collective noun. A ‘pod’ of dolphins, a ‘gaggle’ of geese and even a ‘flange’ of gorillas are well known. In the light of sub-prime and credit-crunch I recently even heard of a ‘wunch’ of bankers.

But the collective noun I wish to propose is a ‘bout’. Not as in a ‘bout’ of influenza; the word should be used when describing repeated failure of officialdom to get its collective act together.

Thus by way of example: “I have just experienced a bout of DEWA” or “Did you finally sort out your bout of Traffic Police?” My own most recent was a bout of Etisalat.

In short, I checked my email at 8:00am on Monday. At 11:00am when I tried to check it again, the ‘Username or Password is not recognized’. I phoned the Helpless Desk on 101.

“We can see that you have paid for that email account, Mr Goat, but we can’t see it. We’ll investigate and… [gulp!]…call you back.”

Disappointingly, although unsurprisingly, I’ve not been telephoned. On my way home from work I dropped into an Etisalat Business Centre, where I was told pretty much the same thing: “The system shows that you have paid for the email box, but we can’t see the box itself. Despite this being Customer Service, we are actually unable to offer any service to you as a customer beyond a slightly uncomfortable green chair. You will have to go to the main branch in Deira. Don’t worry, they’re open until 8:00pm.”

And in Deira, pretty much the same story but with the added variant: “…and we can’t do anything about it because it’s not normal office hours.”

A brief summary of the situation so far:-

• I pay for an email account, which I’ve used successfully up to 8:00am Monday.
  
  
• Etisalat shuts it down “because it’s not been used for four months.” [utter tosh]
  
  
• I am obliged to go to the main branch, at personal inconvenience, where I learn that…
  
  
• Etisalat is unable to resurrect the account.
  
  
• Any and all emails received since Monday morning have been lost forever.
  
  
• I have to shut down the account, then get the email address released before opening a new inbox with the same name some 48 hours later.
  
  
• I can’t have my old email address anyway, because Etisalat now demands a minimum of nine characters.
  
  
• This means that I now have to go and change my email ID on the RTA website, Facebook, et cetera. I assume that it’s possible to do this.

Remember here is a service that I pay for. It’s not free email from Google, Hotmail or Yahoo.

For anyone who’s not worked it out yet, ‘bout’ is derived from an acronym that does not yet exist at AcronymFinder.com :

Bunch Of Useless Tossers.

]}:-{>

We've all got to start somewhere

Here goes with my first ever blog entry on my first ever blog. It's something of an experiment, and will make a change from posting long e-mails to all and sundry.

Maybe I'll get things out of my system by jotting them down here. Who knows? Someone else might even find my various random jottings amusing enough to read.

In due course I'll post some photographs. I can't access my old FlickR account because my ISP has banned the site - and there is a monopoly on internet service provision in the United Arab Emirates. Gosh, thanks, Etisalat! No matter; there are ways around this problem, and you are reading one of them.


I have just spent the past hour downloading Picasa and uploading an avatar. Part of the problem is the newness of all this, another is my dial-up connection (Dial-Up. How quaint!) but a third is Operator Error. One of my work colleagues calls me a Liveware Virus - someone who can't do anything with a computer without it going wrong. It isn't true. I deny everything. As usual.

]}:-{>