Internet access with du slows up

Tahani Karrar

• Last Updated: April 27. 2008 2:01AM UAE / April 26. 2008 10:01PM GMT

DUBAI // Internet access provided by du has become significantly slower since the telecommunications company decided to block websites deemed culturally incompatible, members of the business community say.

Earlier this month du, which provides broadband access for more than 20,000 customers, informed them that websites linked to pornography, alcohol, hatred and terrorism would be blocked starting on April 14.

The measures were taken at the request of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, which in 2006 blocked Skype and other popular low-cost internet-based communication technologies.

But businesses operating in Media City say the latest moves are severely restricting their operations.

“The process by which du is filtering internet access to implement censorship is adding serious delays to general internet access,” said John Robins, managing director of Aether Media Group.

“We are now operating at half the speed of before and in certain cases we can only get intermittent access to some legitimate sites, such as Google and HSBC bank.”

Aether, a UK-managed multimedia production company, streams web videos for companies in the UAE.

Studies by Aether show that downloads on du’s network before the restrictions operated at an average speed of one megabit per second (Mbps), but have now been reduced to an average 0.3Mbps and at one point slowed to 0.009Mbps.

The company also checked the same websites using Etisalat’s network and no delays were experienced. “We are seriously considering moving our web-streaming operations to Etisalat or even abroad if access problems continue in the UAE,” Robins said.

Although the biggest impact of the web slowdown has been on media companies with bandwidth-intensive web development and application activities, advertising companies are also reporting problems.

While the companies say it is too early to put a dirham figure on the cost of the disruption, all agree it is hampering their operations.

“It’s not good news for businesses who are heavy users of the internet — we rely on the internet to communicate with clients and research websites,” said Kavita Anand, an account manager at advertising company Concept Group.

Anand said downloads that would usually take less than two minutes to complete, such as videos, now took as long as 30 minutes.

Other du customers not as reliant on fast downloads said they were experiencing some slowness since the restrictions were put in place, but that this was manageable.

“Monitoring internet traffic can definitely affect internet access,” said Alan Maudlin, a research director at TeleGeography, a US-based telecommunications consultancy.

Osman Sultan, chief executive officer of du, denied the link between monitoring and speed. “Internet content filtering does not affect internet speed,” he said.

He said customers should write to du or the TRA and inform them of any “harmless” sites that were inadvertently blocked so they could look into the matter.

But a source close to du said the company had received complaints on the issue and that internet restrictions and network infrastructure upgrades were causing the delays.

* Zawya Dow Jones