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I hope someone can help me on this!

My family and I are moving to Dubai in a few months from the UK. Our apartment in the marina is due for completion at this time and we will be re-locating over.

The problem is........I have been told that sometimes, just sometimes it could take a month or 2 for our residency visas (that come with the apartment) to come through once we move over (we will be moving as soon as the apartment is built).....this I am told means that we cannot get a telephone line and thus cannot get dial up or broadband - cos you need a residency visa to even get a telephone line...

So the question is, what do we do?? I work from home and broadband access is like a 100% requirement. But how do I get internet access if they wont let me get a phone line in the apartment until I get the residency visa?

Do people go to wifi hotspots, local business centers or what? Appreciate any advice/help/pointing in the right direction guys...in other words - help! I never thought you would need a residency visa to get a phone line to get broadband so am really stuck!!! Anyone know of local wifi hotspots or whatever - or any advice at all..

This is not true - it maybe the case with Etilistat, but all dubai Marina properties are "tied" to DIC Telecom (previously Sahm Technology). I had no problems before i had residency.

hope this helps

here you go

http://www.telecom.dic.ae/

you can buy a USB modem,... easy

Or if all else fails, go to one of the many malls here and find a hotspot, usually in a coffee shop. Don't overdo it on the caffeine though.

There is various satellite dishes like this http://www.spacedaily.com/news/satellite-sng-02a.html that you can use. Find one that will work for your particular area. That way you do not have to use a filtered system and you will be far happier with your internet service.




Arinegangs url is .ae which is country specific and will not show up world wide. Thats why .com .net .org and .info are better domain extensions. They are "generic" and are visible world wide. County specific domains such as .ae are not.

canuckbid wrote:Arinegangs url is .ae which is country specific and will not show up world wide. Thats why .com .net .org and .info are better domain extensions. They are "generic" and are visible world wide. County specific domains such as .ae are not.

The visibility of a website around the world does not directly depend on its extension. Some countries and ISPs might choose to restrict access depending on extension, for example the UAE did (until last year) prevent access to all .il domains (Israel). Some spam filters sometimes restrict access also - the .ru and .tv domains are a couple that are apparently abused by spammers. But so are the generic extensions, especially .biz.

I don't know of any countries that restrict access to .ae domains just because it is .ae.

The DNS system simply matches IP addresses to the domain as long as the extension is one that has been approved by ICANN or IANA (I forget which), which includes the generic TLDs such as .com, .net, .org, .info, .aero, .edu, .mil, .pro, .biz, .name, .int; and the two letter country code TLD extensions. The DNS system does not give preference to generic TLDs.

Using a country code domain extension is preferable in some situations. For example, because obtaining a .ae address is not as easy as obtaining a .com address, there is less risk that a .ae address is a fake or spam website. It can also indicate where a company is based, depending on which country. Usually yes for .ae, but rarely for .tv for example.

dubaimover wrote:So the question is, what do we do?? I work from home and broadband access is like a 100% requirement. But how do I get internet access if they wont let me get a phone line in the apartment until I get the residency visa?

Going back to the OP, as shar said, a USB modem might be a convenient solution. I can't remember if you need a residence visa to sign up, I think you can operate a USB modem on a pre-pay connection which you should be able to obtain with just your passport. Both Du and Etisalat have mobile broadband schemes, but my understanding is that the Etisalat has much greater mobile coverage in the UAE.

And of course, an advantage with mobile broadband is that you can choose your operator, you're not restricted to just Du which would be the case with a landline internet connection.

Mobile broadband is not cheap, allow AED 200-400 per month for decent bandwidth (2GB-10GB), maybe more if on a pre-pay scheme. You shouldn't need more unless you're downloading video or outrageous amounts of music.