There is hope. I'm just waiting when arrangments finished, i hope i can get any talk with new people, if they will listen to proposals.
I believe its really possible to fix quality in short terms, and in acceptable terms to boost speeds (without giving false promises years ahead).
Nuclearcat hey ,

acceptable term to boost speeds ,

can we get any clarification on whats actually going on

are we getting 20mbps or we still far from it , hence i didn't say 50 or 100 which is now the minimum in europe

i accept 20mbps for now

thanks
If we talk technical part, for example most of beirut, in densely populated areas it is possible to roll network, that can serve 30-200Mbps accounts in quite short terms. But i am not sure if local manpower is trainable to do some a bit tricky tasks.
Rural/remote areas a bit harder, i just dont have info, and it needs some statistical data about them.
But it's not technical issue only, anybody who will try to build such network without getting green light from government, he will be stomped to dust instantly. And WHICH particular way will be allowed - i have no idea. If allowed at all.
This story with DSL active cabinets - worst way ever.
35 to 50 % that's how you fool people most people are subscribed to the 2Mb plan lets be optimistic and say 50 % upgrade.
50% of 2 is 1 so you add the 1 to the 2 you get 3Mb speeds average subscription plan in the country.
now we must monitor our borders so those slow internet subscribers from europe and the arab world don't cross our border to use our high speed internet.
if they truly want to upgrade maybe make the average 8-10 Mb as a 1st step so people may watch some high quality videos at least and see the download speed around 1 MB/s instead of 200 KB/s.
To put things in perspective: i wanted to upload 1TB of data to a cloud for safe keeping and remote access by multiple users
it was way cheaper and faster to ship a 1TB hdd to Denmark to a friend and he made the upload on his 40 $ internet connection with 600 MB/s
PS: he has unlimited internet limited plan are only available in mobile internet 4G/LTE.
if you want calculation proofs i would gladly provide it.
Increase 1-2Mbit is a joke, still we will lag behind. Lebanon can jump as i said to 30-200Mbps, but it work totally different way than everything is done in Ogero now, from technical matters, till how billing and installations are done.
1TB for most of end-users you can forget for near 1-3 years, it wont be possible, unless Lebanon will get direct fiber to some well connected european country, and his own submarine cable. We can match 100-400Gb average monthly end-user cap in first world countries, and after that, if it is heavy user, he should go to corporate plan with dedicated bandwidth paid per Mbps or stay with severely reduced speed. It might be possible to increase cap after major part of implementation succeed, to about 600-700Gb per month i believe, but it is number from mind, it really need to do calculations, before saying any numbers.
Remember also, as soon as high bandwidth plans come, restrictions for illegal content sharing will come as well, as soon as users in Lebanon can spread illegal content fast, RIAA/MPAA and such will make pressure on government to enforce restrictions. E.g. user who will get torrent notifications several times should get disconnected from internet completely or fined. Thats a price high speed internet countries pay.
About rural areas i need different statistics than just demand, it is more technical structured data about internet demand in this areas and cost of laying transmission lines there (and maintenance costs + risks estimations + etc). I have idea idea how to collect that data, and there is no precise sources for such data available as far as i know. And its really should be exact data, because cost of mistakes will be tens of thousands of dollars instantly, and thousands lost monthly in each case, if equipment are installed and working, and there is insufficient demand or wrong maintenance calculation.
so basically we wont have any good internet half-decent one for at least another 1-2 years by your estimation or sort to say
well i accept 4mb unlimited plan see how humble i'am :)))))))

what a sad country

on a side note their 4g plan is working great though downside to it , it's very expensive , downloading at 5-6mb in jdeideh with alfa 4g+
I can't say numbers, let's say in best condition it is possible to roll fast internet in most areas of beirut in 1-2 weeks, if all lebanese ride bicycles for all this week. Because cars will be unable to pass any road whole this week, hehe. Many other challenges, such as you need maybe several cargo vessels with equipment and supplies and several large airplanes with qualified engineers from all the world who will work on ground.
So, with information i have right now estimates are 1week-100years, honest answer. When i will have more data, i can give more precise estimates :)
Thanks Nuclearcat , we do appreciate what you are doing

hopefully we will know something in a small time-frame
I split this into a new topic because the other topic is for article links only.
Not a helpful post I know, but I just wanna let you people know that not everyone is as lucky as most of you.

I'm on 1mbps cable connection.

<<Quoting ManOwaRR: "i accept 20mbps for now">>

For me, I'll run naked in the road for 5mbps.
LifeEngineer wroteNot a helpful post I know, but I just wanna let you people know that not everyone is as lucky as most of you.

I'm on 1mbps cable connection.

<<Quoting ManOwaRR: "i accept 20mbps for now">>

For me, I'll run naked in the road for 5mbps.
I have 2mb internet, and it's fast enough for my everyday use, the only time i wish it was better is when i am downloading a large game from steam, otherwise, it's not a big deal. people here are just used to whine with every other post. they are not contributing to anything useful.

i would rather the internet become more stable and have better ping for gaming rather than have a 60mb internet speed. Yes i know how it feel like to have so fast internet,i tried it when i was in norway, a 2 gb file downloads in less than 5min. But you wont turn from a depressed person to a happy person.
I would like to see the unlimited night downloads return to ogero. There is no reason not to have them, how many people are using the internet at 4 am in the morning? That to me would make a huge difference. I can then download high resolution youtube vids, Schedule steam etc... and be sleeping through the waiting times.

It's very simple, and we know it is doable because it was there 2 years ago...
It is interesting to know reasoning within ministry/ogero why they cancelled it, i agree night downloads feature should be available, but might be slightly different timing.
I am stuck with 1 mb connection, but of course, I pay the same as someone who has 2mb---the pricing is one of the things that should be addressed soon. With the 1 mb connection, it is bearable, but not as much when you are sharing the connection with iphones, ipads, chrome tablets and other android phones. It really becomes bogged down at times.

I do have a question about the madness though: when they were going about connecting all of the CO's to the fiber optic network, why didn't/couldn't they start the process of distribution from those CO's to the customers concurrently. Hard to explain what I am saying--say they are connecting water to various distribution areas. When they connect the water pipes, wouldn't it make more sense practically and financially to distribute the water to the customers each distribution site services almost immediately instead of waiting until the whole country is connected. You would literally be able to roll out new services in each area and recover costs instead of trying to connect every CO first then work on distribution to the customers and then wait until the whole country (or what they deem to be) has access to those services.

Simple question which cant be asked simply I guess.
If we talk about fiber, just maintaining fiber is very different than copper lines. Broken copper cable you can just manage to connect by very simple tools and dirty hands, while fiber will need splicer, cleaning liquids, clean hands, accurate worker(thing that is very hard to get in Lebanon) and if it's FTT* then you need to recheck/recalculate network optical budget by OTDR after fixing, if things are intended to be done properly. Otherwise it will be worse than DSL.
And while fiber to exchange can be easily done "properly" (3rd parties wont be able to mess with it, except "fiber finders"), when fiber is distributed to customers, there is a lot of risks that someone stupid will break fiber at customer site (some idiot may put his extremely curvy hands in building distribution box and even just bend fiber under unacceptable angle, or remove plug by dirty hands, touch connector by finger and plug back, both typical issues needs very hard troubleshooting to find reason).
Plus operating fiber to customer is completely different in troubleshooting and maintaining than "backbone" fiber.
But everything can be solved, just a lot of work to write proper guides and calculating which way things should be done is the best to succeed.
nuclearcat wrote And while fiber to exchange can be easily done "properly" (3rd parties wont be able to mess with it, except "fiber finders"), when fiber is distributed to customers, there is a lot of risks that someone stupid will break fiber at customer site (some idiot may put his extremely curvy hands in building distribution box and even just bend fiber under unacceptable angle, or remove plug by dirty hands, touch connector by finger and plug back, both typical issues needs very hard troubleshooting to find reason).
I think "fiber to home" is still light years away! We have one of the worst infrastructures there ever is...

The project they're mentioning is connecting all Ogero/central by fiber optics which is already quasi-finished. It will help improve the capacities/speeds they have but it won't be a magical button...
I highly doubt that speeds will exceed the double; I wish I'm wrong and they get it to 5 times... The "20 times" number the ministry is rumoring is incredible with the infrastructure we have I think.
give us 8mbps unlimited and they can have those light years to fix the rotten infrastructures

i accept anything at this stage , really anything is better than nothing with our rotten goverment
When ogero lines laid like this - not even slightest chance this will last long :(
Doesn't look like fiber, but fiber laid recently might be not much better situation, i am still discussing with other engineers way how ogero lay it, and how long it will last without repairs.
I could be wrong but, we don't need fiber to home to hit 15 mbps or so, and to have an unlimited connection. As long as the centrals are connected by fiber(and I think the major ones already are) I don't really understand why we are at 1 and 2 mbps, even copper is better than this...
Because look up, how copper is being fixed and laid.


This is ok like this to fix telephone line, but not ok to fix for ADSL. Don't expect more than 1-2Mbps on cable that is repaired such way.
Those guys does their best, but unfortunately high speed data transfers over copper possible only if cables are new and very securely installed, but if it is lebanon, with it's messy excavators, landslides, and etc - cables will be broken very often and will be repaired under rain and in mud, then alternative approaches should be taken.
Can't we take exemple from other more advanced countries facing similar or worse geography?
Peru has a mean dl speed of 10Mb, while facing way worse issues than we do
Based on reddit thread they say:

[–]GrumpyCuy 2 points 1 year ago*
Like so many things on life, its depends. Where you'll stay? Lima is a city with 10 millions people. The Internet conections are pretty diverse.
3 Mb down is a bit lower. 10Mb probably exist on several residential districts on Lima.
Claro, Movistar, Entel and Olo are the big ISPs on Peru.
And check others, its not better, just some areas gets high speeds
https://www.reddit.com/r/PERU/comments/41g3fv/fastest_internet_in_lima/
Holy cow and we should expect them to lay down fiber with these workers? Shitty copper infrastructure is the number one reason why Lebanon's Internet is shit.

ISPs also have to stop overcommitting cause that's a 9.0 on the Internet shitt-o-meter
who is really expecting fiber connection in lebanon anytime soon =)))) , maybe 2027 my son will be using fiber to play online
I am wondering how one can get frequent updates on the situation, for example the activities of the ministry of telecommunication or the points to be discussed/discussed at cabinet meetings.

On a side note, I am surprised to see pictures of workers exist, assuming of course they are actual lebanese workers laying or fixing copper lines.

My best source of information is in fact this forum, but the sticky article topic updates every few months on average.
I believe that the root of the problem is the high price of international links for ISPs, and the low amount of bandwidth available.
At the root of that, there is the monopoly of the state on the international connectivity, and I doubt they have the motivation and capacity to make things much better, as long as they can get away with the current situation and make money out of it.

I believe that, if there was more freedom, if ISPs could directly buy their bandwidth from the international providers, without having to go through Ogero and their pricing, if real private companies were free to fund their own undersea cable (or other connection) to the rest of the world, with only minimal intervention from the state, then the internet quality with get much better with time.
Not only price, but also disbalance of pricing between DSL and private companies.
Ogero gets backbone by 50-100 lower price (i am assuming that, but not sure if true), and distribute as much as they want low for end-users.
Private companies have to keep such low prices, but because profit margin miniscule, they cannot invest nor in decent equipment, nor to support.
Another plague is current "reseller" scheme, it is not interesting, but there is some dudes who run just last mile networks, and make exorbitant money to compare with Ogero and ISPs. They exist because govt dont have laws to allow ISPs work on last mile, only such "illegal dudes" can take such risks. So when again one more minister barks about "illegal internet", ask yourself, why they didnt make such people to be able to work legally.
But before fixing all that, another legal framework should be done, that if ISPs profit margin will improve, they should not pocket this money and use for lavish lifestyle, but to keep high standards of connectivity. All this ideas i had in my list, how, when and where, but who will listen?
10 days later
If only the government ended its monopoly over Internet distribution and international transit, you'de have 100mbps in less than a year.
We deployed FTTx GPON and are capable of delivering HSI, but with the megabit priced at 140$, not a lot can be done. The new minister promised to decrease it by half in April and gradually to 15$ over months. If he delivers, I promise to deliver 100mbps accounts in my area with very light FUPs. My infrastructure is already prepared for any volume you might throw at it.
nuclearcat wrote Another plague is current "reseller" scheme, it is not interesting
This is how I feel as well.
It is not interesting for the customer either, because all they get is the same poo (excuse my language) with a different branding.

Companies will not invest in new equipment, not only because margins are low but also because the bottleneck is outside their control, so any improvement from new equipment will be minimal.
jeansalim wroteIf only the government ended its monopoly over Internet distribution and international transit, you'de have 100mbps in less than a year.
We deployed FTTx GPON and are capable of delivering HSI, but with the megabit priced at 140$, not a lot can be done. The new minister promised to decrease it by half in April and gradually to 15$ over months. If he delivers, I promise to deliver 100mbps accounts in my area with very light FUPs. My infrastructure is already prepared for any volume you might throw at it.
where are you exactly?! Please come to my area! :)
jeansalim wroteMy infrastructure is already prepared for any volume you might throw at it.
If government knows about your infrastructure, they will dismount it in blink of eye and make one more loud scandal, keeping all who is involved behind the bars for several month.
No legal entity other than ogero allowed to have fiber network by current laws (and its extremely bad).