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Both Etisalat and du offer prepaid mobile service but which one is better for a newcomer to Dubai? Please advise.

Probably Etisalat. They seem to have better coverage. They both suck though.

If you often make calls to your home country using your phone, du will charge you by the second, which is more practical.

I had DU for 4 months but had too many problems connecting and receiving calls due to their weak network. Then I changed to Etisalat, and I'm generally happy with them. Yes, you can save money with DU, but it's not worth all the trouble.

DU is cheaper to buy, cheaper to use, and reasonable OK with coverage. Nowhere as close to Etisalat as coverage, but thats understandable.
Etisalat is charging too much for new Sim, call charges are per minute, but network is sound.
For a newbie, I would suggest start with DU, coz you will not lose anything by taking a new sim card, as you will get equivalent talktime. if you are not happy, switch over!

iambanned wrote:DU is cheaper to buy, cheaper to use, and reasonable OK with coverage. Nowhere as close to Etisalat as coverage, but thats understandable.
Etisalat is charging too much for new Sim, call charges are per minute, but network is sound.
For a newbie, I would suggest start with DU, coz you will not lose anything by taking a new sim card, as you will get equivalent talktime. if you are not happy, switch over!

Etisalat charge every 30 sec., Du is definitely unreliable and in some closed areas you'll find ur phone with NO coverage. I had a Du line since the very beginning hoping they'd improve, but I switched back to Etisalat cuz Du still have a long way to go.

1 funny thing about Du (my line is postpaid) is their bill on their helpline contain only the current month dues, and if u have dues from a previous month(s) u need to check their website or wait for your bill sent by postal mail. Once I didn't know I have previous dues and didn't pay them then they barred all my outgoing calls including calls to their own customer support line!!!!!!

I had to call them from my Etisalat line to settle things up and return my line to life.

For fairness sake: their customer support people both on the phone and on their shops are very friendly and helpful. But their operations people and senior management don't look like they have an improvement plan on the short term...

I still use Du for international calls though...

I think Etisalat is better than Du.

Etisalat has wider coverage and no network jams

Both the Etisalat and Du are having their plus and minus.
1. Etisalat is the premier in UAE, and has nice coverage all over the UAE. You will be get connected at any time/anywhere if you use Etisalat. But when we take a new connection its fee is higher than DU and its call charges as well. It will cost 30 Fils per minute for local mobile to mobile/landline call. Also When the time of renewal it will charge AED 100/- and will never return it to the customers. Also even if our call duration is below one minute for LOCAL/STD/ISD, they will charge one minute minimum charge for the call.
2. Du has started its operation since 2007 and its main features are pay as you go scheme. If we use to call below 1 minute it will charge for the second we called only and the bill will be lesser than Etisalat. And the connection charge is also low (now AED 55) and will credit AED 54 back to us. Also when we renew its annual subsciption they will refund the amount (AED 55) back to us by crediting AED 11 each month for five months.

And for the connectivity, Etisalat is the best which covers all over the UAE, but DU only available in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah especially. Other parts partial coverage and sometimes always No network!

Anyway I use DU for the last one year, bcz find it economical and I live in Abu Dhabi and not using to travel other parts of the UAE.

Now its your time to choose the convienient one!

Note: Am an Indian and there is a lot of Telecome operators right there. And there is a healthy competition and the benefit of the competition is going to the subscibers. And most of the parts of India get connected with almost all the network providers. And good quality and payment schems and options are available there. Here it is very pity when we compare it with the Indian Telecom Service!