Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, also known as Etisalat, is the sole telecommunications carrier and internet service provider in the United Arab Emirates.

Etisalat has a monopoly on all of the telephone and internet usage originating from the country.

Emirates Internet and Multimedia

The ISP, although owned by Etisalat, has the name "Emirates Internet and Multimedia" or EIM. EIM is the sole ISP of the United Arab Emirates. For home users, it provides a Dialup connection, ISDN connection, and DSL connection. The DSL connection is known as "Al Shamil".

The Dialup and ISDN connections are billed by the hour, whereas the DSL connection has a fixed monthly rate of 250 AED.

Censorship

EIM blocks sites that may contain:

1. Pornography,
2. Religious content and/or content that is against the religion of Islam
3. Content that criticises the rulers of the United Arab Emirates
4. Information about cracking, phreaking, etc.
5. Information on how to go around the internet block.
6. Other material that EIM, or the Government of the United Arab Emirates considers objectionable.

The blocking is done through a proxy server ( http://proxy1.emirates.net.ae )

On visiting a website that is blocked, the user will redirected to http://proxy.emirates.net.ae

This ISP notably bans The Best Page in the Universe, a popular webpage written by a writer who writes many rants and many self-aggrandizing pieces.

See also: Censorship in cyberspace

External link

• http://www.etisalat.ae (Official website of Etisalat)
• http://eim.ae/eim/isp/english/index.html (Official website of EIM)
• http://proxy.emirates.net.ae (Webpage that comes when trying to visit a restricted site)