I know I sound stupid, but I'm new to Lebanon, I'm from the UK and Morocco, so I'm used to 10Mbps + and I'm shocked at how bad things are here..Anyway I heard about a connection called VISP, whats that about? My main concerns are downloading torrents, usually between 3Gb-5Gb a week...What options do I have, if any?

Thanks
Good luck is all I can say. Good luck.
3Gb-5Gb a week is a practically impossible thing .
VISP no limit, stable sometimes (not in peak hours)... rather good connection, not wow, but good. You won't be wowed by any connection here :)

Welcome to Lebanon, and to the forum :)
:) hmmm....Thank you! So even huge organisations have to deal with this crap connection? How do people do business in the IT market? I guess it was like this years ago everywhere. You know I'm not so bothered with the speed as with the limited downloads, thats what really gets me, oh well I'll just have to adapt...
How do people do business in the IT market? That's a good question.
pikatore wroteHow do people do business in the IT market? That's a good question.
that would interest me too, is there a way for better connection if you have business?
sure , you can lease a T1 (Tier 1) line from the government , but needs licensing and costs a lot ...
As all investors said - there is no investments in IT business possible in Lebanon. Mostly because of electricity and internet.
I guess even IT business will be not possible soon in Lebanon.

Special thanks to "illegal fighter" Gebran Bassil ex-minister, son-in-law of one of leaders of corrupted political party who fight with corruption, who screwed last hopes for citizens and ISP's.
al_jamal wrotedo you know how much approx.?
i dont know but im sure its in the thousands of us dollars monthly.
nuclearcat wroteAs all investors said - there is no investments in IT business possible in Lebanon. Mostly because of electricity and internet.
I guess even IT business will be not possible soon in Lebanon.

Special thanks to "illegal fighter" Gebran Bassil ex-minister, son-in-law of one of leaders of corrupted political party who fight with corruption, who screwed last hopes for citizens and ISP's.
why? coz he stopped an illegal link? that's what is bothering you? so if he applies the law, he's bad. and if he doesn't it's also bad. so what should people do? apply it on your competitor and not on you? then you will be satisfied with the minister. he's corrupt because he closed the barouk station? what exactly is bothering you with the closure of the barouk station? was it legal? no, then? so what's wrong in closing it?
Yes, there are problems in the IT sector, but the problem is not in what basil did when closing the station.
battikh - government doesn't give new capacity to ISP's AT ALL.
They prefer to sell directly to end-users. Also they cannot give much, they are not investing to upgrades and seems not planning to do so. They are happy to rob users as is, with terrible prices and crappy quality.
It is ILLEGAL by Lebanese laws that ISP's have link outside (and almost ALL had illegal links), but it is THEIR RIGHT anywhere else to do so (in other countries). Also it is a way for ISP's to make people spend less and to have more reliable internet, and it is normal way how all countries work. Here is not, because lawmakers busy blaming and fighting one with each other.

Ogero is SINGLE source, and for almost all ISP's capacity they have SINGLE POINTS of failure. You can imagine that? All Internet in country depends on single point of failure. And this point stopped few times and stopped all communications inside country.

So yes, it is ILLEGAL. But it is more ILLEGAL what government doing with people internet here, their monopoly, how they treat customers and etc.
Sorry, you prefer to be crystal clear and legal, but push back your country to stone age, or you prefer to try change few things?
Another thing, where government was been (and seniour Bassil) when we was buying this capacity and this "Barouk ISP" was selling it left and right? Why they didn't stop it at beginning and didn't check source? They was alive for many years, and noone gives a shit about that, till senour fighter Bassil came and needs more votes and he ready to destroy everything for that. I am not sure still that Barouk ISP is not covering scheme for undercover Ogero bandwidth sales (that go to someone pocket). As i told before - IP's was in same range as Ogero.
1st, you have to differentiate between UNFAIR and ILLEGAL. two totally different things. Ogero's monopoly is not illegal, it's unfair. This should definitely be changed, I'm totally with you on that.
But these problems don't date from Gebran Basil's term, these are laws, structure, institutions, ... that were instored waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before him. And if you want to look at it from a political point of view, most of the ministers that were before him are all politically against him. And as you know, in lebanon, they hire based on connections, not based on qualification. So most of the employees in the ministry and Ogero are people against Basil, which doesn't make things easy to change everything from one day to the other.

What the government did with barouk, being fair or unfair, right or wrong, from a legal point of view, they were applying the law. you can't really blame them on that. What you could do though, is blame them about not applying it on everyone, everywhere, but not the other way around.

And yes, ISPs survive from these illegal links and these links are what make internet usable in Lebanon, which is wrong, which is what is slowing down the improvement of the legal stuff. If ISPs were playing by the rules and letting the users struggle getting decent internet connections, only then they would move their ass to ask the government to make real changes. But as long as things are bearable, no one is moving his ass.
But yes, as soon as ONE ISP starts using illegal links to provide a better service, all ISPs have to do the same to keep being competitive, otherwise they die. But using illegal links IS what is slowing down movements to get better legal links and a better infrastructure, coz end-users are not feeling the heat, they don't feel the need to make changes.


I just don't understand why you always blindly blame Gebran Basil personally for every problem and not simply the ministry's actions as a whole from 10 years till now. That's my whole concern, i was in no way saying that things were great and that there were no problems or flaws in the ministry or in the country's laws.
As one investor told on conference (not word by word, but sounds similar
"I want government to remove their fucking nose from my business and not interference with it. I pay them tax, i follow basic fair rules (monopoly questions, customer rights and etc), and thats where nose of government should end". And they told about rules and laws in Singapore for example, Visa policy, taxes and etc, and that sched light why Lebanon sucks for business and Lebanon laws outdated and feeding corruption.

Regarding "do something", ISP's doing that. Do you know for example that some interested parties tried to propose global website filtering system in Lebanon? And i've seen how ISP's did their best to not let this happen. But where things reach money, well, ISP's too small to handle that. Government is much more powerful than them. And as all businesses ISP's understand, that putting nose in politics too deep will kill them.
Btw i have real experience in that, and when ISP where i worked tried to change things in city a bit better and uncovered some corrupted schemes... well, secret police in few days found reasons to arrest our equipment. ISP was closed.

And Bassil's mistake that he declare himself as "fighter with corruption", revolutionist, reformist and in fact he did corruption (money laundry in cellular companies and over call centers), he destroy existing business, and he did nothing to IMPROVE things. Better someone doing nothing, than someone declare himself angel, and doing evil things.
P.S. He declare himself as engineer bla-bla-bla, but in fact his technical knowledge doesn't match modern scholar even at end of term. Seems he doesn't have proper advisors even. Probably he should blame Israel or some other "enemy" for his own lack of knowledge.
I was laughing when he was counting internet bandwidth in E1's.
And how is Basil responsible about the outdated laws that affect businesses and investors in general?
And do you know if Basil didn't do anything to improve things, or tried but wasn't able to due to political reasons? coz it's very different.

I still don't understand why you throw all your blame on him personally. What's weird is that you actually know that such a behavior is wrong as you criticize him (and most lebanese) for always blaming israel and syria for all their problems (which is true, lebanese do that way too much, just as an excuse to sit and do nothing), but yet, you do the same by blindly blaming basil for everything, even though what you are criticizing is not under his responsibility.

1- you criticized that he closed an illegal station. But what's wrong in closing something that is illegal? Ok, you find the law that renders it illegal as wrong, but this law was created by previous ministers.

2- you criticized the outdated laws applied on businesses and investors, this has no relation with basil, not even with his ministry.

3- you criticized him for not doing anything. you don't even know if he tries but couldn't, tried and things are in progress or just did nothing. he took office for a very short time and drastic changes during this small period is politically impossible, specially when you have opponents putting sticks in your wheels. again, other ministries are involved if he wants to make changes, key ministries that were with his opponents and most of the employees of his own ministry are people who were hired by the previous ministers, people against him politically.

4- criticized him that he is corrupt. fine, don't know about that, but probably. but how is this related to the outdated laws and the lack of improvement in the infrastructure?
battikh wroteAnd do you know if Basil didn't do anything to improve things, or tried but wasn't able to due to political reasons? coz it's very different.
Because it is directly visible from what he talks. He talks for example to do FTTH in Hamra. WTF? Why they need 1Gbit(even more over GPON's for example) to each home, if total capacity to country less?
Rest of his "plans" was total nonsense also.
battikh wroteI still don't understand why you throw all your blame on him personally. What's weird is that you actually know that such a behavior is wrong as you criticize him (and most lebanese) for always blaming israel and syria for all their problems (which is true, lebanese do that way too much, just as an excuse to sit and do nothing), but yet, you do the same by blindly blaming basil for everything, even though what you are criticizing is not under his responsibility.
Because he was responsible to bring to country decent internet, and i believe orange party and their zombie followers, directly or indirectly i was trying to help them. My trust has been betrayed by this... i dont have words for him, and his father-in-law, old looser, who left his soldiers and run away to France. I had hope at least in this country you have good politicians, but i was wrong.
1- you criticized that he closed an illegal station. But what's wrong in closing something that is illegal? Ok, you find the law that renders it illegal as wrong, but this law was created by previous ministers.
Example. Do you know thing called tax amnesty? Well it can be something similar. If someone give bandwidth on Ogero, even more expensive, we will switch without thinking in one day. Even we need to pay in advance. Smart governor will do like that. It won't hurt business and will close illegal case.
Stupid people like Bassil will appear on TV, flex his miscles, make big booom somewhere (even it hurts many people) and tell "Ya, dude, look, i'm so cooool, i'm so strooong".

Btw we paid for Ogero in advance for capacity, when Seniour Bassil was on chair. We paid and got nothing.
2- you criticized the outdated laws applied on businesses and investors, this has no relation with basil, not even with his ministry.
He is close to head of party, and part is in one of largest "alliances". It is in their power to change that. And actually he can propose that instead of appearing on TV and showing how he is cool.
3- you criticized him for not doing anything. you don't even know if he tries but couldn't, tried and things are in progress or just did nothing. he took office for a very short time and drastic changes during this small period is politically impossible, specially when you have opponents putting sticks in your wheels. again, other ministries are involved if he wants to make changes, key ministries that were with his opponents and most of the employees of his own ministry are people who were hired by the previous ministers, people against him politically.
Yep. Drop down prices for cell for few penny - biggest victory he archieve.
Money laundry with Alfa (was floating in the news), money laundry with call centers - another personal victory.
Crazy spendings for FTTH in Hamra - another one... it is like family who don't know how to pay tomorrow for electricity - taking loan for brand new sportcar.
4- criticized him that he is corrupt. fine, don't know about that, but probably. but how is this related to the outdated laws and the lack of improvement in the infrastructure?
Corrupted people think about their own pocket only. And if at same time they lie that they fight with corruption, it is even worse, they will prefer to do damage for country, but fill their pocket. Such people big evil and it is better to avoid them as much as possible. They can leave ruins behind them if they get too much power.
battikh wrote4- criticized him that he is corrupt. fine, don't know about that, but probably. but how is this related to the outdated laws and the lack of improvement in the infrastructure?
Just for the sake of illustration: If hes going to pocket half of the budget, and choose the company run by his stepson over the one that is the best qualified for a tender, then I believe it will have an effect on the infrastructure.