Dubai: Online gaming could be severely hit over the next few days by engineering work on cables, officials have warned.
Etisalat's internet arm eCompany said that engineering work on undersea cables could cause internet services to remain slow for the coming week.
However, the company promised the effects on internet users would be much less marked than those seen last August when two undersea cables were damaged.
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Three undersea cables - Flag, SMW-3 and SMW-4 - are being moved this week because of the building of an island off Fujairah.
Abdullah Hashim, assistant general manager of eCompany, said services were not likely to remain slow for the whole week, but instead would be affected for short periods at a time.
"The cables are in the area where they want to build the island, and to move them, they have to be pulled out."
"During this shifting, services might be slower. It is like pulling out your television cable - you have to disconnect and then reconnect it and the television will not work during that time."
"Only certain hours will experience the effects. They have given us a window of five days when it could be affected," he said.
Factors such as the weather will affect how long the scheduled engineering work will take, Hashim said.
He added that Etisalat had done "a lot of preventative work" adding extra links to lessen the effects of this week's operations.
"People might not even notice any difference. We will try to manage the traffic. Many operators would not do this work to lessen the effects, but customer service is very important to us," he said.
Hashim said people looking at local internet sites, such as those for UAE banks, should not suffer any slowness at all.
However, some functions, particularly online gaming and peer-to-peer operations, in which a number of computers form a network, could be more heavily affected although are likely to still operate.
The engineering work was scheduled to begin on Tuesday morning.
Last year, two major internet cables were broken off the coast of India during monsoon weather in early August.
These breakages knocked out eight of the UAE's 20 internet links to the outside world at the time, although Etisalat added extra links to try to reduce the effects.
There were many reports from users of slower internet services, but Hashim said the effects of this week's scheduled engineering work would not be as severe.
"This is nothing in comparison. It cannot even be compared to that. Many people might not feel any change," he said.
Fast facts
35% of residents use the internet
- Internet subscriptions began in the UAE in 1995
- There are now more than 500,000 subscribers
- In September 2005 there were an estimated 1.3 million users - up from 735,000 in 2000
- This means that about 35 per cent of UAE residents use the internet - the highest figure for any Arab country
- Experts expect there will be 3 million internet users in the UAE by 2009
