Business | Technology
Internet calls in free zones blocked
etisalat's efforts to stamp out unauthorised VoIP access appear to have spilled over into the free zones, with office workers there reporting difficulties in using the free to low cost internet-based phone service.
- By Ivan Gale, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 August 31, 2006
Dubai: etisalat's efforts to stamp out unauthorised VoIP access appear to have spilled over into the free zones, with office workers there reporting difficulties in using the free to low cost internet-based phone service.
A e-mail sent out by du, an internet service pro-vider at Internet City, earlier this month informed tenants, "We would like to update you that we have not done any changes in our network to block Skype and/or other internet-based voice applications. We are further investigating this issue with our upstream internet service providers and we will keep you updated on the prog-ress."
This week, a customer service representative of Dubai Internet City said the recent troubles arose from etisalat.
Outside the free zones, etisalat blocks internet ports usually used for VoIP calls. Within the last two weeks, the representative said, the operator inadvertently blocked its use in Media City and Internet City, which are supposed to have unfettered internet access.
"etisalat is blocking the ports for VoIP, and we got infected," the representative said. "We are negotiating with them to open up access to VoIP again."
Mohammad Najuib, acting manager of corporate communications at etisalat, said, "Until now VoIP has not been licensed in the UAE. This issue should be addressed to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA)."
A representative for the TRA said he was not aware of any recent issues arising from VoIP access but that the agency's stance against it has not changed.
While internet-based calling faces new difficulties in the free zones, the campaign to block it in the rest of the country seems to have gained new ground. Reports are circulating that etisalat has found new success in blocking VoIP calls.
Reza Mamati, a VoIP consult in Internet City, said he believes etisalat now has the ability to pick out voice packets among the sea of data traversing the internet to selectively block VoIP calls.
The news is bad for the overwhelming majority of expatriates in Dubai. Hamid Munir, an IT engineer for a company in Media City, used to spend an hour every day on Skype, a popular VoIP service, talking with friends and family from his office and at home in Deira.
But in the last few weeks he said he has been unable to use it. Each time, the programme tells him it is "not connected to the internet."
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