Ministry of Communications actually going to improve internet ;D

EddieEC · 2010-02-26T11:21:04+00:00

I read in Le Commerce a document saying the Minister of Communications he will upgrade Ogero plans. 256 KB plan will be a 2 mbps and will have a limit of 120...

Georges

arithma wrote
Yorgi wroteNothing
We really don't care.

Neither do I ! I hope that the Lebanese dream will be achieved one day...

EddieEC

Raficoo wroteinteresting... any chance you could give a link/ or scan the Document(if it's a paper)... cuz it truly does sound "Too Good to be True"... non the less... i'm Desperate enough to believe anything they say right about now....

hell even if they just increase the Quota i'd be happy enough(akeed not just by 1GB lol, but by 10-30GBs(at the very Minimum))

problem is that all ISPs are ruled by the Monopolistic Devil Ruler Ogero... and the only chance we'll any improvements is if the "BIG BOSS" decides to have any..

and should the new plan happen: All Private ISPs will go out of bussiness due to Ogero being the "Main Supplier".

i Guess only Time will Tell in this Case... i'm already sick of the same S*** i've had to keep Stressing under the Limits for almost 3Years.

The magazine is in my dad's office, once i have it, I'll scan it for you guys. Not to mention, the document said they were introducing fiber optics cables or whatever you call them. I don't know if it's too good to be true, it shouldn't be too good to be true, we seriously need better internet experience.

nuclearcat

battikh wrotethrough cyprus, wouldn't the length of the cable be lebanon-->cyprus-->italy ?
and through IMEWE, the length connecting us to europe would be lebanon-->egypt-->italy, right? it's not a big difference in length...
but well, whatever it is, at the point we are in our infrastructure, ANYTHING is good enough, as long as it's an improvement, i'd take it.
btw, how much international bandwidth does cyprus has access to?

Very old info:

The island is primarily connected around the world through 8 submarine cables (5 being fibre optic technology ), 6 major and a number of smaller satellite earth stations. These stations operate via INTELSAT and EUTELSAT as well as via the Russian satellite network to serve the ever increasing telecommunications traffic between Cyprus-Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

As i know biggest point - they can upgrade capacity, and for major backbone ISP's it is easy to bring there upgrades (not like Lebanon, who have always political issues).

i'm not sure i got this part. aren't governments supposed to invest? isn't extra bandwidth a social/business need for the development of the country?
and was the problem that ISPs were not aware of this link? or that they were not allowed to bid for it?

Government must not be business structure. Try to find anywhere except very 3rd world countries where government interfere with such project. Keywords "government funded optic cable". They can give help with taxes maybe... not more.

YES, ISP's was not aware that someone going to do this link. Sure there was rumours, but it is kind of not serious to rely on them. Information was introduced with aplomb by Gebran Bassil, just because he was counting it will give him more votes.

battikh

nuclearcat wroteGovernment must not be business structure. Try to find anywhere except very 3rd world countries where government interfere with such project. Keywords "government funded optic cable". They can give help with taxes maybe... not more.

we are a 3rd world country that has 40billion $ of debts, which is around 170% of our GDP... How is the government supposed to pay it back if it doesn't make profits? raising taxes? that would hurt investors, business, and most of the people in general who already have very bad salaries...
And if the government wouldn't have financed it, maybe no one else would have... plus it's an investment, they are planing to sell bandwidth to neighboring countries, mainly syria i guess ( i don't think we'll be selling to israel :P)

nuclearcat wroteYES, ISP's was not aware that someone going to do this link. Sure there was rumours, but it is kind of not serious to rely on them. Information was introduced with aplomb by Gebran Bassil, just because he was counting it will give him more votes.

is it ogero's fault then if they have the monopole over this cable? are they to be blamed? ISPs should have asked about it...
btw, ofero has invested for a certain amount of bandwidth, but lebanon has the right for more than what ogero currently got, lebanon can upgrade for more bandwidth later on. Do other ISPs have the right to ship in and get some more bandwidth now? or is it reserved only for ogero?

hussam

battikh wroteDo other ISPs have the right to ship in and get some more bandwidth now? or is it reserved only for ogero?

From what I understand from nuclearcat, no they aren't allowed to (but maybe I understood incorrectly).

battikh

^^ from what i've been reading, lebanon is entitled for a certain amount of bandwidth, from which ogero is taking a relatively small amount. so there is room for more bandwidth to be taken.
in some of the other countries which are part of the IMEWE thing, more than 1 ISP are getting access to it.

From what i understood from nuc is that other ISPs didn't initially get in because they were not aware of it. but what about now? if there is still a relatively large amount entitled for lebanon, other ISPs could get it... Or did ogero pay for exclusivity? or is it that ogero paid for the cable from egypt to lebanon so they, and only them, own it?

nuclearcat

battikh wrotewe are a 3rd world country that has 40billion $ of debts, which is around 170% of our GDP... How is the government supposed to pay it back if it doesn't make profits? raising taxes? that would hurt investors, business, and most of the people in general who already have very bad salaries...
And if the government wouldn't have financed it, maybe no one else would have... plus it's an investment, they are planing to sell bandwidth to neighboring countries, mainly syria i guess ( i don't think we'll be selling to israel :P)

Like all other countries broke this ring.
Their huge debt mainly because they are doing too much business. And as all governments - doing it inefficiently.
Taxes... well, now they are selling overpriced bandwidth for ISP's and getting some bucks. And... example, they revealed on some unrelated meetings, that Ogero invested $200000 to SINGLE hardware unit to filter porno. Thats huge money... for nothing.
1)This solution can be done by Lebanese engineers EASILY. For much less money, around $10000.
2)They didnt got any profit from it and they will not be able to get investment in 10 years (it will fail earlier btw). People just not interested, business case is weak.
How much more money they send for dust or inefficiently?

Now take another way of tactics. Make a fixed tax for each Megabit. Let Tier-1 ISP's sell to Leb directly. You will say - "Lebanese ISP's will cheat and not pay all taxes". Maybe Lebanese yes, but Tier-1 who comes to market here - will not play such games with local government, and will not risk their business just to win few bucks. Serious players play seriously. As result government will be more transparent - they don't need to invest to obscure technical things, they get their taxes without headache, they have less headache to keep infrastructure running.
Another thing, MAJORITY of bandwidth passing away from government hands, over satellite.

battikh wroteis it ogero's fault then if they have the monopole over this cable? are they to be blamed? ISPs should have asked about it...
btw, ofero has invested for a certain amount of bandwidth, but lebanon has the right for more than what ogero currently got, lebanon can upgrade for more bandwidth later on. Do other ISPs have the right to ship in and get some more bandwidth now? or is it reserved only for ogero?

Yes, their fault. Even exUSSR countries with their extreme level of corruption sorted out this issue.

ISP's asked. Ogero famous in ignoring questions.
ISP's have right only to send papers. As soon as Ogero will decide - they will give... something. Or will not. They don't have here any responsibility, if they don't give. In other countries if Telecom company don't give reasonable answer in 1 month - they will be screwed in court.
Btw in Russia for example, in over-regulated market even, ISP don't have right to refuse customer request for internet connection. And backbone ISP cannot refuse local ISP request to give bandwidth, and they have strict limit of time when they have to give final answer, finish installation and etc.

nuclearcat

battikh wrote^^ from what i've been reading, lebanon is entitled for a certain amount of bandwidth, from which ogero is taking a relatively small amount. so there is room for more bandwidth to be taken.
in some of the other countries which are part of the IMEWE thing, more than 1 ISP are getting access to it.

From what i understood from nuc is that other ISPs didn't initially get in because they were not aware of it. but what about now? if there is still a relatively large amount entitled for lebanon, other ISPs could get it... Or did ogero pay for exclusivity? or is it that ogero paid for the cable from egypt to lebanon so they, and only them, own it?

It can be same story as with old cables.
Lebanon struggle to make all that, and at the end they notice they dont have enough money to finish payments.
They sell major part of capacity for Syria. Now you have this cables going thru Lebanon, but you won't benefit from them, cause you own very small part of their capacity.

It can happen same. Terabits of IMEWE will flow directly to Syria, near Lebanese citizens nose, , and private ISP's like beggars will have to steal bandwidth over border from Syria to run their business.

euryale

i couldn't care less which isp gets more profit, i just want the good infrastructure and decent internet for the country.
about that 120 gb/month i think it has a catch to it maybe traffic shapping torrents or something like that which happens in a lot of countries.

kareem_nasser

yup most ISP's will then put torrents on their blacklists.

Raficoo

kareem_nasser wroteyup most ISP's will then put torrents on their blacklists.

true, true... but who uses Torrents n P2P anymore.. these days things are shifting to RS, MU,FS,DP, even FTTP.. and a hell lot more.. amd of they block sites, people use Proxies, HTTP Tunneling, and VPN services.

still... anything above 15GB will be descent.. the 120GB sounds way too good to be true as a first step up from the s***ty limits we currently have.

WizaRd

I'll be fine with 10GB to be honest. Hell, even 8GB is alright.

nuclearcat

"Much virtual ink has been spilled over Ubisoft's new, harsh DRM system for Assassin's Creed 2. You must have a constant internet connection, and, if your connection breaks, the game exits. While this has angered many (and justifiably so), most writers on the topic have made an error. They think that this system, like all DRM systems in the past, will be easily broken. This article explains why, as dreadful as the system is, it does have a chance of holding hackers off long enough for the game to make its money. As such it is, if nothing else, a fascinating experiment. From the article: 'Assassin's Creed 2 is different in a key way. Remember, all of its code for saving and loading games (a significant feature, I'm sure you would agree) is tied into logging into a distant server and sending data back and forth. This vital and complex bit of code has been written from the ground up to require having the saved games live on a machine far away, with said machine being programmed to accept, save, and return the game data. This is a far more difficult problem for a hacker to circumvent.'"

Guess, how to play this game with unstable and limited lebanese internet?

kareem_nasser

If Ogero is gonna have the good stuff + 120GB limit and the ISP's wont have any special offers then i will go to Ogero.

darko

nuclearcat wroteget certified engineer to do remaining.
This engineer cares only about money he do, as soon as bell ring at 17:00, he close computer, and he go home. Preference in his head is his personal issues, and job at ISP is just pure business for him. Sure if he have some unsolved problem - it will make him worry at evenings, but nothing more.

AYYYYYY, that's gona be me in couple of years, so watch it!!!

battikh wroteOgero mainly has an advantage coz they are the ones who have access to all of the bandwidth.
For example, the IMEWE cable was financed by ISPs, Ogero being the one in lebanon which invested in it. The question is, was ogero the only one biding on it because they're the only ones who decided to? Or was it because legally, in lebanon, they are the only ones allowed to? Or was it due to political pressure and blackmailing?

Its not OGERO who invested in it, its was the lebanese government through OGERO, so we're practically paying for it and handing OGERO full control over it. the way i see, OGERO will use the increase in bandwidth quota to win over customers, and once they're satisfied, they'll allow the other ISPs in. If the ISPs in Lebanon are really committed to improving the quality of their services then they should consider coming to terms with each other and start funding their own cable, if they put their mind to it, im sure they'll find enough politicians to back them up.

Anyhow the IMEWE cable is coming to tripoli, and things are gona change(for ogero and the rest), maybe not as much as some of you guys have been speculating, but its going to improve

rolf

nuclearcat wroteGuess, how to play this game with unstable and limited lebanese internet?

I always thought that non-hackable copy protection passes by the internet, like this system.
But it is not necessary to have a constant internet connection. I think having a check at some defined points (game startup, or on each level) could work. By implementing it this way they risk loosing a market where the connection is not good enough, and also annoying or worrying lots of other people, even in places with a poper connection.

battikh

darko wroteIts not OGERO who invested in it, its was the lebanese government through OGERO, so we're practically paying for it and handing OGERO full control over it.

and is ogero privately owned? or does profit made by ogero goes to the government?
if the gov invests in it, it's not a gift to ogero so that teh people owning ogero make more money, they are investing in a company THEY own, it's owned by the gov, its profits go to the government.

its like saying that the government should not put money in public hospitals because it would be unfair for private ones.

rolf

battikh wroteits like saying that the government should not put money in public hospitals because it would be unfair for private ones.

The difference is that when you are ill you can choose to what hospital you want to go. But with the net you dont get to choose.
Sure you can buy Cyberia, but in practice, Cyberia (or anyone else) will be a reseller for Ogero.

darko

battikh wrote
darko wroteIts not OGERO who invested in it, its was the lebanese government through OGERO, so we're practically paying for it and handing OGERO full control over it.
and is ogero privately owned? or does profit made by ogero goes to the government?
if the gov invests in it, it's not a gift to ogero so that teh people owning ogero make more money, they are investing in a company THEY own, it's owned by the gov, its profits go to the government.

its like saying that the government should not put money in public hospitals because it would be unfair for private ones.

i cant give u the correct answer, but all i can say is that the people running ogero are the same ones running the goverment

BTW, www.ogero.com.lb is down
http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www.ogero.gov.lb

battikh

rolf wroteThe difference is that when you are ill you can choose to what hospital you want to go. But with the net you dont get to choose.
Sure you can buy Cyberia, but in practice, Cyberia (or anyone else) will be a reseller for Ogero.

doesn't change that the government investing in its institutions is absolutely normal.
investment and competition are 2 different thing. how can you unjustify one because of the other? that's quiet not really related if we want to tackle the subject objectively. but yes, if we want to be subjective and just blame all our daily problems on ogero, including the weather, yeah, it's a very valid point.

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