Your Complaint: Troubleshooting

Mr Rashid Khan of Dubai says:

After almost two weeks of troubleshooting my internet connection problems, etisalat have suggested the most bizarre solution to my issue - downgrade my 1 Mbps DSL to a 256 Kbps! I have had poor internet speeds on my connection (during the evenings) in Mirdif for the past month - at times only providing me with dial-up performance. The visiting engineers told me that nothing more could be done and the best solution for me would be to downgrade my connection as it was a waste of money to pay Dh249 for the 1 Mbps connection when I was only getting a fraction of the speed. I wonder how many other folks around town must be experiencing this issue and are continuing to pay for a service that clearly isn't up to the mark!

I also wanted to share with our readers that they can verify the performance of their DSL connections by visiting the following etisalat test site and download a large file: http://testadsl.emirates.net.ae/

The download speed is a little difficult to determine but a typical browser displays speeds in KB/sec (Kilo Bytes per second) but the DSL speed is measured in (Kilo Bits per second) and the conversion is as follows:

1 Mbps DSL connection should have a download speed of at least 110 KB/sec

512 Kbps DSL connection should have a download speed of at least 55 KB/sec

256 Kbps DSL connection should have a download speed of at least 22.5 KB/sec

The above have assumed the typical loss due to error/faults and were measured using MS Internet Explorer 8.

If you are not getting the above speeds via your browser then clearly etisalat is not providing you the service that you are paying for. Also it is important that the above speeds should be available to the users during all times of the day - not just early morning hours when the traffic is low.

The management of etisalat responds:

Kindly be informed that Al Shamil service has been provided for Mr Rashid Khan.

Mr Khan responds:

Etisalat had come and installed the WiMAX service and have asked me to deactivate my existing Al Shamil (DSL) service due to "poor response" - my slow performance issue has been resolved. It was only after the intervention and assistance of Gulf News that they provided me with this solution.