Broadband Internet users to grow by 53 per cent in 2003 in the UAE

Though current figures are relatively low, the number of Broadband Internet users are projected to leap by 53 per cent in 2003. This makes the UAE one of the first in the region to record such wide adoption of high-speed Internet connectivity that has become the standard in the United States and the European Union.

UAE's young and educated community of Internet users who are beginning to migrate to faster and higher quality connections drives the exponential growth of the broadband Internet. As a result, broadband usage will continue to expand very rapidly, while the number of narrow-band (dial-up) users will reduce by 5 per cent per year, according to a study conducted by Dubai-based Madar Research Group based on a user-profile survey released by Emirates Internet and Multimedia, the country's sole Internet service provider.

"Broadband Internet is set to become the norm in most countries and it is encouraging to know that the UAE is once again taking the lead in this field," said Salem Al-Shair, Director eServices, Dubai eGovernment. "This development will considerably enhance people's ability to use Dubai eGovernment's advanced online services on the portal www.dubai.ae with higher efficiency and greater speed. The dramatic growth in broadband Internet users reflects the progressively high IT-competent community of the UAE and demonstrates that the government's efforts to promote the country as the regional IT hub are yielding results."

"We expect that the e4all programme launched recently by Dubai eGovernment to provide cost-effective IT training opportunities to accelerate the IT penetration in the society will receive a further boost with the increasing adoption of high-speed Internet. It will allow users to draw optimum benefit from the eGovernment offering by making full use of the advanced systems installed by us in order to facilitate world-class delivery of online services. There are several value added services on our online platform and we believe broadband Internet is the preferred way to access our services," added Al-Shair.

The study estimates that Internet penetration in the UAE will grow by 10 per cent in 2003, to reach 1,175,000, the highest in the GCC region. Of which, 11.3 per cent would be using the broadband Internet which includes Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), leased and ISDN lines. The preference for the broadband Internet is driven by the need for downloading audio and video files from the Internet, requiring a connection that is higher than a standard 56 kbps dial-up connection.

Though broadband usage in the UAE is relative within the region, the growth rate is quite slow when contrasted with European countries such as the UK where broadband users rose by 235 per cent in one year from April 2002 to April 2003, according to the report. Hong Kong holds the record with 82 per cent of its Internet population connected via broadband.

"We believe that wider usage of the broadband Internet will help the UAE achieve its objective of becoming the IT hub at a faster pace," said Al-Shair. "Dubai eGovernment is on track to meet its goal of providing 70 per cent of its service online by the year 2005. We regard the increasing popularity of high speed Internet as a highly encouraging sign regarding the community's readiness to use online service."