Ditto to desertflyer's post. VPN u/s , skype u/s. Tried everything, any help greatly appreciated. PM pls.

Skype fixed
 

Talked with the Skype chaps and it seems when you download the lates update it switches the status to "offline". Check the bottom left corner of the sign-in page and make sure it says "online".

Cheers!

guys,
mine works fine, using the VPN from zkype.net, its pretty fast and great to access other blocked sites.

Skype in Al AIn
 

Just downloaded Skype Beta 3 and all is working as it should. First time in months :)

Bad news guy. Look what was written in Gulfnews today:

Dubai: The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said yesterday it would allow internet telephony, or Voice over Internet Protocol technology, but only for local calls within the UAE.
Long-distance calls using VoIP will continue to be prohibited for the time being to protect the revenue telecom operators receive from international calls.
"The policy by the TRA is to allow only etisalat and du to provide VoIP service in the local market," said Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Government Sector Development.
VoIP has proliferated in recent years with free-to-consumer VoIP providers like Skype and Net2Phone.
These popular VoIP services are actively blocked in the UAE, where an overwhelming majority of residents are expatriates from Asia and the West who make frequent calls back home. The TRA has not indicated if it will ever allow consumers to use Skype or Net2Phone legally.
As for allowing long distance calling with VoIP, Al Mansouri said the government was reviewing its telecommunications policies and would eventually permit international VoIP calls.
The news comes as a half-reversal of its announcement in October, when it said it would allow VoIP from the two licensed operators, etisalat and du.
"We are taking it step by step," he said. "At some point VoIP will be liberalised. As for when, I cannot give you a date. We do not want the quality of service to be lacking or the revenues of the operators to be hurt."
The TRA believes 60 per cent of the telecom revenues in the UAE come from international calls, and that allowing VoIP calls could severely hamper the financial performance of operators.

Surprised???
 

Don't know about the rest of you guys, but this reaction from TRA does not surprise me at all. We all know what the real reason behind the VoIP ban is and that the TRA is under absolutely no pressure to allow it. There is little expats can do about it because after all - according to the TRA, VoIP has always been illegal and now they're just enforcing an old existing law!

In case you have found yourselves a functionning workaround, you can be sure you will need it for quite some time still, probably until you decide to pack your stuff and leave this place!

Etisalat mobile roaming - does it exist?
 

Whenever I land in a foreign country, there's a welcome message from Etisalat WASEL by SMS waiting for me, inviting me to use their International Roaming Service.

"Dial *111*NUMBER# and press send".

Well, I've tried this in over 12 countries so far and in each and every case my attempts have been met with a message by the respective local network informing me that the facility does not exist.

Anyone else with similar frustrations?:zzz:

I found wasel to be a giant pain in the hiney, and just forked over the deposit for a "normal" post paid roaming line...solved the problem..:ugh:

I got to Kabul and lo and behold the bl##dy thing worked, that was Wasel service, but I never used the 111 service just dialled straight numbers with international code,

Thanks for your thoughts, mates. I shall try mtogw's advice next time - perhaps it's really as simple as that.:ok:

Etisalat upto its old tricks?
 

Is it just me or has anybody else noticed that it is no longer possible to sign in to MSN Messenger? Tried on both desktop, laptop and PDA but nada. What gives Etisalat? :suspect: I have the latest version of Windows Live Messenger and Internet Explore 7.0 and I was unable to sign-in from about 2 days ago. :ugh:

Yes same here, must get a letter to Microsoft as they will not be pleased. the question is, is it permanent or just for Christmas to make more for these money grabbing :mad: . Merry Christmas to all from Etislut. :sad:

All fine here on SZR, along with Skype.

SyB

Don't know if its relevant to you in the ME but Taiwan earthquake broke 2 major undersea cables and internet very slow in HKG.:confused:

I'm not experiencing any problems in AUH!! Everything is working fine here.. messenger, yahoo & SK***E....

SNAFU
 

Disregard all before. Messenger up and running. Put it down to sunspot activity or something...

Easy to get paranoid in Dubai....

No luck in Al Ain
 

Hasn't been working here for last couple of days. Still not working 1730 on 28th. :(

international bandwidth
 

this is correct and is because all the far east traffic was routing through our tiny cable, same symptoms as last years cable cutting incident off India, etisalat restrict secure traffic to reduce bandwidth requirements.
If they had decent connections would not happen of course

Broadband in UAE
 

Hi there all

I may have a possible position in Emirates early in the new year, but before this happens I am hoping you can help me with an internet query.

If one takes up the Emirates provided housing option can one still connect to broadband? I thought I saw this was impossible unless you owned but would appreciate the correct information from a few of you already there and on broadband!

secondly, does skype work over there on broadband or have they blocked that too?

third question I have, are the new villas at silicon oasis, already wired internally for an internal network or is it just like where I live where we just have the cables external?

await your feedback people, thanks

cheers:) :)