Lebanon to get higher speed internet?

crazy

I've heard about some rumors concerning internet speed in leb, I've checked a bit here and there and found out this:

BEIRUT: Internet speed in Lebanon is expected to become 20 times faster in two months once the country gets linked to a cable stretching from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, a statement by the Telecommunication Ministry said on Wednesday. Telecom Minister Jebran Bassil signed a preliminary agreement in Barcelona with Kuwait-based Mada Communication company and Saudi STC company. The agreement stipulates that the companies will install the internet cable to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Bassil hopes that the project will be accomplished in two months, stressing that the Lebanese government will not spend any money from its pocket on this cable. The statement said that the rates offered in Lebanon will be very competitive. Lebanon introduced three years the fast internet system DSL three years ago. But critics say that the DSL connection is sill far lower then other internet in the region. - The Daily Star

(here's the link http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=99465) sorry samer, I can't recall if I can post a link or no, just for the source of the article.

We are used a lot for crap and bullshit, anyone has more details about that? maybe nuc or teo would know anything about it by working in this field?

It would be a nice thing to have more speed with relatively large cap in leb, but it has always been just talks in this country, no acting...

/discuss

Crazy

nuclearcat

crazy wroteIt would be a nice thing to have more speed with relatively large cap in leb, but it has always been just talks in this country, no acting...

/discuss

Crazy

One thing i suspect can happen, Ogero will leave this bandwidth for themself.
But better let's see.

crazy

I surely hope not nuc, it would be a real waste of bandwidth...

Hybrid

2 months = 2 years lol

nuclearcat

Elections at Jul. It will not give him points :-D if 2 years... or u think just talking give points in leb? (i dont know, really)

crazy

Franckly I don't care if it is an election trick or not. God knows how much time I waste waiting for a page to open, or an important download to finish... bring in more bandwidth, bring in new equipment, keep engineers here^^

(on another note, till now, Bassil got results (see the cost of mobile phone) so we have a bit of hope that this project would work also:D )

P.S: election in june nuc;)

proners

Well i really hope this is true.. but i won't get my hopes too high on this.. maybe i shouldn't get my hopes up at all >< after all it's Lebanon :p

Raficoo

ربط الإنترنت في لبنان بمحطة السعودية
على هامش اجتماعات المؤتمر العالمي للهاتف الخلوي في برشلونة، تمكن لبنان من الحصول على مسار إضافي يتعلق بربطه على شبكة الإنترنت العالمية عبر محطة التقاء الكوابل في المملكة العربية السعودية، وهذا سيوفر له سرعة وجودة للخدمة التي يقدمها لمستخدمي الإنترنت في لبنان.
وبحسب بيان لوزارة الاتصالات أصدرته أمس، فقد توصل وزير الاتصالات جبران باسيل وشركة «مدى» للاتصالات وشركة الاتصالات السعودية STC، الثلاثاء الماضي، إلى اتفاق مبدئي لربط لبنان بشبكة الإنترنت العالمية عبر شبكات شركة المواصلات السورية وفرع شركة مدى في الأردن، وصولاً إلى محطة التقاء الكوابل في المملكة العربية السعودية. وهي محطة توفر 70 في المئة من احتياجات الدول المجاورة لللسعودية، بمسارات متعددة وكوابل عالمية تربط شرق الكرة الأرضية بغربها، مما يساعدها على تقديم أفضل الخدمات لرجال الأعمال والإعلام والجامعات وسائر مستخدمي الإنترنت في لبنان ودول الجوار.
ويوفر هذا التفاهم، الذي تم بحضور المدير العام للإنشاء والتجهيز في وزارة الاتصالات اللبنانية ناجي أندراوس وفريق من وزارة الاتصالات، للبنان مسارات متعددة بجودة عالية وسرعة مضاعفة 20 مرة، وفي خلال مدة لا تتعدى الشهرين ومن دون أي استثمار من الدولة اللبنانية وبأسعار تنافسية للسوق.
وسيؤمن هذا الأمر للبنان تقدماً ملحوظاً على صعيد قطاع الاتصالات، ولا سيما ارتقاءً في خدمة الإنترنت في لبنان لكي تصبح على المستوى القائم في دول الخليج وقريبة من المستوى العالمي، وهذا سيزيد الفرص في الاقتصاد الوطني حتى تتطور كل قطاعاته الإنتاجية والاجتماعية، بعدما كانت هذه الخدمة المحدودة القدرات حجر عثرة أمام تطوره.
(الأخبار)

Source: http://www.al-akhbar.com/ar/node/119299

Translation:

Linked to the Internet station in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia
On the sidelines of the World Conference of the cellular phone in Barcelona, Lebanon has been able to obtain additional path linking to the Internet via a cable meet in Saudi Arabia, and this will give him the speed and quality of service provided by Internet users in Lebanon.
According to a statement issued yesterday by the Ministry of Communications, has reached the Minister of Communications Gebran Basil, the company «over» Telecom, Saudi Telecom STC, last Tuesday, a tentative agreement to link Lebanon to the global Internet communications company networks across the Syrian branch of the company over in Jordan, leading to a convergence of cable in Saudi Arabia. Station provides 70 percent of the needs of neighboring countries to Saudip, multiple paths and a global cable linking east of the western hemisphere, thus helping to provide the best services for businessmen and the media, universities and other Internet users in Lebanon and neighboring countries.
This provides the understanding, which was attended by the Director-General of the establishment of processing and the Lebanese Ministry of Communications Andrew Nagy and a group of the Ministry of Telecommunications, Lebanon's multi-tracks of high quality and double the speed of 20 times, during a period not exceeding two months without any investment of the Lebanese state and the market at competitive prices.
This will ensure significant progress in Lebanon at the level of the telecommunications sector, particularly in the upgrading of Internet service in Lebanon to become the standard in the States of the Gulf and close to the global level, and this will increase opportunities in the national economy so that all sectors to develop social productivity and, after service has been limited stumbling block for capacity development.

Padre

i dont wanna dream :P
but what's the benefit of a 10Mbit connection if your quota is 5GB per month ? :P

crazy

I am not worried about that, we will always have VISP and their unlimited account (sure more expensive, but hey its unlimited, so more speed with relatively same price, is fine by me:D)

I am actually worried about the hardware, does all ISP/Reseller have the hardware from point A to the end-user to carry this much traffic? This is the question one should be wondering about... what is the point of having a really high bandwidth, with no practical way to get it to the user..

proners

Padre wrotei dont wanna dream :P
but what's the benefit of a 10Mbit connection if your quota is 5GB per month ? :P

Well it would be pretty stupid to have that speed and that crap limit, a fair limit would be 100gigs, even some european companies enforce a limit sometimes(but a big one :p) to prevent abuse...
Anyway, this link to Saudi Arabia will be prove to be a nice improvement to the internet structure in Lebanon, but i doubt it will be very reliable, i've seen many ETISALAT users complaining about the connection crapping down and it took quite some time to fix it :p...

toxic

man i think this time we will have real good connections or why would they be doing all these tying up cables and stuff

i hope we get a good connection

xterm

It would be nice. I'm not complaining at the moment, we're using hdsl in the office and its quite nice.

rolf

proners wrote
Padre wrotei dont wanna dream :P
but what's the benefit of a 10Mbit connection if your quota is 5GB per month ? :P
Well it would be pretty stupid to have that speed and that crap limit, a fair limit would be 100gigs, even some european companies enforce a limit sometimes(but a big one :p) to prevent abuse...
Anyway, this link to Saudi Arabia will be prove to be a nice improvement to the internet structure in Lebanon, but i doubt it will be very reliable, i've seen many ETISALAT users complaining about the connection crapping down and it took quite some time to fix it :p...

I think most of the time the problem would be on the isp to user segment or on the farm of filtering (and logging?) proxies that they have...
This link will most probably go directly to the backbone, without passing through their internal networks, and censorship proxies.

anyway...

bigger version...
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2008/02/01/SeaCableHi.jpg

proners

@rolf, you made a good point.
+1 on the pic
I always have mixed feelings when a politician makes a promise/plan here in leb :p, i get happy for a moment then i think about it and figure that the real project won't happen at all, or will be merely a small improvement. Anyway i hope that Miracle Kid(lol) will keep his promise, as someone said he maybe wants to score a few points before the elections :p

rolf

Egypt can actually pull the plug on internet in most of asia whenever it wants :)

xterm

Just thought i'd throw this in:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/12/swedish_woman_has_fastest_internet_connection/

gilly

That's one lucky 75 year old...
I'd like to throw this in too, it seems that the Ministry of Telecomm. are actually willing to do something about better internet:
http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=1&article_ID=99803&categ_id=3

xterm

I stopped believing/waiting for anything when it comes to lebanon, my attitude nowadays is "When its there, its there". I'm just glad i use hdsl at work.

invalid-user-43

crazy wroteI am not worried about that, we will always have VISP and their unlimited account (sure more expensive, but hey its unlimited, so more speed with relatively same price, is fine by me:D)

Well you should get worried, because Zobbran Bassil raped VISP last weekend.