Settling in Dubai (utilities, phone, internet, etc.)
Contents of this article
If you have found an apartment, there are some other steps you will have to take. You will need to set up water, electricity, air conditioning, phone (both landline and mobile) and internet. I will as usual give you an overview and my story of setting the utilities up.
As Dubai is an expatriate city, all utilities and telecommunications are made easy to connect and pay by tenants themselves. All contracts will be set at your name, so that you won’t need your landlord to be involved. It will be your responsibility to connect the services, pay the bills and disconnect the services when you leave the apartment.
Normally, when you move in, all services should have been disconnected by the previous tenant (or the owner), but this may not have been done. Then you may face a hassle of chasing the landlord to pay the outstanding amounts and disconnect the services. Ask your landlord for confirmation of disconnection of the services.
Monthly payments summary (1-bedroom apartment in JBR), 2 people
These are my average monthly payments:
- Electricity & water (DEWA): 300 AED (55 EUR, 82 USD)
- Air conditioning (Empower): 300 AED (55 EUR, 82 USD) monthly + 800 AED (146 EUR, 218 USD) quarterly
- Landline + broadband internet 512 Kbps + TV: 234 AED (43 EUR, 64 USD)
Total: 1100 AED (201 EUR, 300 USD) a month with the quarterly charge split by 3 months.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA)
Before you move in your new Dubai apartment, you will have to connect electricity and water. To do so, you need to apply for services in DEWA‘s office.
The procedure for activation of the service can be found in DEWA’s official guidance. Check also the consumer guide. After you have done the connection procedure, the service will be switched on and you can start your new life in Dubai.
Note that you will have to pay a refundable deposit of 1000 AED (183 EUR, 272 USD) for an apartment or 2000 AED (366 EUR, 544 USD) for a villa.
Bills will be issued every month for electricity and water in a single bill. I pay around 300 AED (55 EUR, 82 USD) for a 1-bedroom apartment every month. However, this price does not include the air conditioning as the a/c services are charged differently in JBR (see below). If you live in an area where air conditioning consumes electricity, your bill should be higher.
I would recommend subscribing for electronic bills, then you will receive your bills via e-mail and will be able to pay them online with your credit card at DEWA Online Bill Payment.
Air conditioning
A/c is always central in Dubai. Normally, your landlord should tell you whether you need to apply for Empower services. If you don’t need Empower services, you may just jump to the next section.
Otherwise, you will need to connect to Empower. I know that Jumeirah Beach Residence and in The Palm Jumeirah are serviced by Empower. Probably, they service other districts as well. Empower uses water to cool buildings. Read more about how they do that at their official website. Very interesting reading.
To connect the service, you will need to apply for it at an Empower’s office. Check the official website for the contact phone number and locations.
Empower billing is a bit tricky. You will be charged a consumption charge every month depending on how much cooling you have consumed, and also you will be charged the quarterly demand charge regardless of consumption. Bills will be issued monthly and can be paid only at certain locations, which is not really convenient. I would recommend you going to the Head office and setting up auto-debiting from your credit card. That will save a lot of time later.
Normally, I pay around 300 AED (55 EUR, 82 USD) consumption charge and around 800 AED (146 EUR, 218 USD) quarterly demand charge. My wife is at home during the day, so the a/c is almost always on. If you will be out of home during the day, your charges should be lower.
Landline + broadband internet + TV
All three services are provided by either of UAE’s telecom providers: du or Etisalat.
You will need to connect the service in one of providers’ branches. I haven’t been able to compare quality of service of the providers. Well, you won’t be able either, because only one provider is available in a particular area. Check out their websites for locations. Normally, showrooms are present in each of the major malls.
Local landline calls are included in the monthly charge, calls to mobiles are charged separately. Don’t know the exact cost but it is not expensive.
JBR is serviced by du. I enrolled for ‘Home Plus’ package, which includes landline (they provide a telephone as well), 512 Kbps internet and about 60 TV channels (they provide a decoder). There are Ethernet sockets everywhere in the apartment, however, you may also want to buy a wi-fi router. It can be bought in any electronics shop like Sharaf DG, Plug-ins or Jacky’s.
I pay 234 AED (43 EUR, 64 USD) for that.
Internet and censored content in Middle East
You may have heard a lot about blocked websites in UAE. Well, that’s true. A lot of websites are blocked here. If you would like to know more, read here. Briefly, they block websites containing abusive, anti-Islamic and adult content. The list of blocked websites also includes Flickr. Personally, I don’t understand that. Although Flickr contains some erotic, there are much more sites featuring erotic not being blocked.
However, don’t panic. Most of the web is open. You will easily access your favourite Google, Facebook, Twitter and almost all websites that are not concerned in other parts of the world. I don’t suffer much, neither will you.
Skype in Dubai and UAE
You may have read a lot about Skype being blocked here. That’s not true. You can use skype to make skype-to-skype calls and chatting. Landline calls are not working though. Check out paid VPN access on Google to find out how to use skype.
Mobile phone
There are 2 providers as well: du and Etisalat. Just go in a mall and buy a sim-card.
Quality of both providers is fairly good, I’ve got no complains. I don’t know how much a minute costs, and I also failed to find the price on the providers’ websites. I don’t pay much for mobile though.
Mobile internet is extremely expensive. 20 AED went off just with loading one website on my wife’s iPhone. I failed to find the price as well, but switched internet on our mobiles off immediately.
Mobile bills cannot be paid online; you will need to buy recharge pin-codes in super markets. Recharging instructions are on the reverse side of the slip.
My employer provides me with an Etisalat mobile that I don’t pay for, so I don’t know how much it costs. My wife is using Etisalat as well. I pay max 25 AED (4.6 EUR, 6.9 USD) a month for it.
My story of settling in Dubai
It was much easier for me rather than it will be for many of you. The relocation company that my employer hired to facilitate the move did everything for me. So, I didn’t have to care about going to suppliers and applying for the services. I know that she visited all three providers in a couple of hours, so it must not be difficult.
There were some problems though.
Internet
Once the relocation agent paid du the fee for my connection, I had to wait for a few days to be contacted by du customer care. They called me and scheduled a date for a technician to come and set it up.
On the appointment date nobody came at the agreed time. When I called the customer care, they simply told me that there was no booking in the system. I was very angry, because it was a working day and I had to take a day-off, but nevertheless, we rescheduled the visit to another day the same week.
Nobody came again. That was over the top. I spent about an hour on the line with customer care listening that something was wrong with the system and the technician did not receive the booking and he was too busy to come because his working day would be over at 6 PM. I tried to get hold of the duty manager but that all was useless. The highest person I managed to speak to was a supervisor. He always promised to call me back but he never did, so I had to call back myself to get feedback.
Next couple of days I was promised to be called back in an hour every time I called them. As they didn’t call back, I was calling them every hour myself insisting on coming during non-working hours as it was their fault twice. Finally, I got hold of a manager, but the only thing she could do was to get a technician come the next Saturday.
I gave up. They don’t do any exceptions here. If you don’t want to use them, you won’t be using the internet at all. Big business definitely needs some competition here to become world class.
A technician came the next Saturday and set it up. It took him 15 minutes to connect the wires. Don’t really understand why they don’t keep the cables connected and don’t switch the service on/off in the control tower.
Mobile
I bought an Etisalat SIM-card for my wife in an Almaya supermarket. They promised to have it activated overnight. But they never did that.
I had to log a service call to Etisalat customer care to activate the card. I must admit that their customer care works extremely well. I received an e-mail response informing me that they had not received the documents from the shop. It took them two or three days to sort that out, and they kept me updated all the time.
My advice would be to buy a sim card in one of the providers’ own shops to avoid issues like mine. I would assume they should activate the service immediately there.
Air conditioning
When I received the first bill, there was also a disconnection notice with due date the next day inside. So, I had to urgently draw to the Empower’s head office to pay the bill. There I set up auto-debiting from my credit card not to come there again.
It also appeared that there was an outstanding amount not having been paid by the previous tenant. I had to pay it myself, but the landlord paid it back to me afterwards.
November 18th, 2009
Dear sir,
Can you please provide me the information about how to disconnect landline, al shamil internet and DEWA services from my existing apartment as I will be shifting to another location in Dubai. Kindly help me in this matter.
Thanking you
vinod Kumar
Dear Vinod, I have no idea as I haven’t had any disconnection experience so far. Please check with DU/Etisalat and DEWA.
Hi ! thanks for this blog, extremely useful for a newcomer (im flying in tomorrow ! regarding Blackberry contracts, from the comments you heards in Dubai, would you recommand du or Etilasat for a frequent traveller and do you know if data usage through applications is charged ?
Sorry if these questions are a bit too specific
Welcome!
I know that internet is quite expensive here. On my wife’s iPhone 20 AED were gone just after loading one website. I am sure they should have a separate service for BlackBerry as there are many people using it.
I am using a company mobile, so never really bothered about choosing between the operators.
Thanks for reply. Seems that using an iphone costs an arm in dubai ! I will certainly go for the unlimited world contract with etilasat. It will be partially covered by the company as well
Funnily enough, I set up my wife’s iPhone to use wrong parameters for internet. Otherwise it always tries to download something (weather forecasts, stock exchange, iPod needs some songs’ lyrics…). And that costs a fortune. She can’t even use skype for chatting. All the money are being gone in a moment. It’s cheaper to call
Sure that unlimited world one you mentioned should be cheaper than regular traffic costs.
Hi. Just wondering about the Empower billing. You said it costs about 300AED a month on consumption basis. Was wondering, are your units on always throughout the day and night? I live at the executive towers and have left my a/c unit on over night but it does not seem to bring down the temperature. Was worried about how much it costs to leave the units on all day long and all night long.
Hi John. I had a 1 bedroom apt. A/C was turned on in bedroom all night long and in the living room all day long. This is where I was coming from. I also noticed that if you leave a/c on for a long time, it will not be as cooling. Once I was sick for a week and a/c was working in a 24/7 mode. It wasn’t really cooling but the bill was as if a/c was working its best. I would recommend to always switch a/c off.
I was curious about the Empower charges. I just moved into and Apt in JBR and I know it uses Empower for A/C. I already registered with DEWA and paid AED 1000 deposit and I’m trying to find out if there is a deposit for Empower and if so how much is it? Thanks
Hi Ken,
Yes there is a 2000 AED deposit for Empower. Hope this reply is not too late.
Very helpful. Thanks
Hi, your website is very informative! However I am still struggling with one issue: how do I cope during period directly after my arrival in Dubai on a residence visa (issued in Europe) and before I buy I car in Dubai??
Since I am not a tourist (resident) I will not be able to rent a car…..
Kind regards;
Gijs
Hi Gys, thanks. That’s a catch-22 in some sense. However, once you’ve got a residence visa, you can get your UAE driving license in a couple of days. Check out this link http://www.dubaifaqs.com/driving-licence-exchange-uae.php