redbyte wrote4G is actually a competitor to DSL.
Well I see, you're talking business. For me, I used to be a heavy gamer, so internet latency was a headache for me. Concerning 4G in Leabnon:
1)Latency is definitely not as good as IMEWE's.
2)Connectivity is less reliable and less stable than DSL. Imagine the heavy cloudy rainy winters!
3)Monopoly! Everyone knows it, we have no competition between alfa and touch. We saw their offers concerning 3G packages, and 4G ones are surely not going to be any better. So it's a noway for 4G to be used by domestic or even the regular business users who need a good amount of data.

I don't have a deep knowledge concerning the internet world, but I'm sure for domestic usage fiber optics should be the #1 priority. Add to that the horrible offers of mobile data services, then we have no choice other than wired connections. But I see this issue from a normal user perspective, I have no idea why a speed over 10Mbps is important for business, a 8Mbps connection with a 30-40ms latency to Europe is a dream coming to reality for me. So maybe that some people see that having 4G for now is important since DSL speeds aren't enough for them justify this step from the ministry :/

Best regards and good night :-)
a month later
Well where I live we still have alfa gprs. Several people made contact with the minister regarding 3g in our area but nothing changed.

In my opinion everyone in lebanon deserves to have 3g before the ministry goes on their wild 4g adventures.
iron wroteWell where I live we still have alfa gprs. Several people made contact with the minister regarding 3g in our area but nothing changed.

In my opinion everyone in lebanon deserves to have 3g before the ministry goes on their wild 4g adventures.
what is your mobile device? also what is your region?
Im in bekaa Anjar, I use Xperia arc s but dunno why does that matter since its the same on all devices and dongles.
It is common, that in remote areas such technologies unavailable at first moments, because it is just not profitable. In center of city there is high density of users, some infrastructure. Anjar have too low users density, and huge problems with communications and electricity.
Just count - base need to serve constantly traffic, to be profitable. If Anjar has 1000 users even, who pay monthly $30 - it is not enough to cover expenses. While in city center in offices constatly working users, that can reach much more numbers (because they dont stay permanently, and most of them when there consume traffic, which equal traffic).
When they will have old 3g bases - they will move them to remote locations.
iron - it is telecom business rule in all world.
3G Coverage touch

3G Coverage Alfa
I wonder why that little area in northern beirut is not covered
Touch map much more professional. Alfa map lies a lot, in my area no 3G coverage, and it shown as green.
I understand that their are certain rules about that nuclearcat but we have Touch 3g why wouldnt we have alfa?
Worth to call their support team and tweet the minister (sehnaoui). Maybe he will support or he can shed some light on things :)
sadly all of those were done for almost a year now and still the same :(
24 days later
Hello guys,

I am having some trouble connecting to the LTE network in Beirut.

I bought an iPad 4 (Model A1460 GSM) which definately supports LTE band 3 (1800MHz) in europe.

It did not come with a sim-lock or anything like that. When I came back to lebanon I registered it at the airport. I then purchased an alfa mobile broadband prepaid sim card (came with 19$ credit) AT A RESELLER NOT DIRECTLY FROM ALFA and directly charged another 30$ on it in order to be able to subscribe to the 50$ 3GB bundle. Which worked out pretty easy.

Where i live, there is NO LTE coverage, and I am fully aware of that, however i often go to beirut, specially abc achrafieh, dbayeh, downtown etc.

I was excited to finally for the first time try the lebanese LTE network, BUT nope only received 5 bars 3G with ridiculous 2-5mbit/s

The guy in the shop ensured me that I would not need any special sim card for LTE, amd when i called alfa, the 1st guy i got said the same while on their website they state that i have to switch my current sim to a so called "USIM" amd the 2nd guy on their website said I would need to buy a whole new mobile broadband line...

I am really confused now...

Might be important to note that even though i just purchased my sim two days ago, it was still an old one from about mid or end 2012

Thats why i said i got it from a reseller...

My settings are :

APN usb.mic1.com.lb
Username mic1
Password mic1

For all 3 fields (mobile internet, LTE (optional) and personal hotspot)

(The apn settings page on the ipad looks like that)

So my 3 questions are: where is the issue ( sim, device, coverage, settings...)

in the worst case scenario, do i need a new line that again would cost me 50$?

What is the best solution?

Please help instead of saying things like " Oh... 4G... You dont need that 3g is more than enough 4G only burns your usage down"

Sorry for the previous sentence but thats what alfa told me... :(
forgotten wroteHello guys,

I am having some trouble connecting to the LTE network in Beirut.

I bought an iPad 4 (Model A1460 GSM) which definately supports LTE band 3 (1800MHz) in europe.

It did not come with a sim-lock or anything like that. When I came back to lebanon I registered it at the airport. I then purchased an alfa mobile broadband prepaid sim card (came with 19$ credit) AT A RESELLER NOT DIRECTLY FROM ALFA and directly charged another 30$ on it in order to be able to subscribe to the 50$ 3GB bundle. Which worked out pretty easy.

Where i live, there is NO LTE coverage, and I am fully aware of that, however i often go to beirut, specially abc achrafieh, dbayeh, downtown etc.

I was excited to finally for the first time try the lebanese LTE network, BUT nope only received 5 bars 3G with ridiculous 2-5mbit/s

The guy in the shop ensured me that I would not need any special sim card for LTE, amd when i called alfa, the 1st guy i got said the same while on their website they state that i have to switch my current sim to a so called "USIM" amd the 2nd guy on their website said I would need to buy a whole new mobile broadband line...

I am really confused now...

Might be important to note that even though i just purchased my sim two days ago, it was still an old one from about mid or end 2012

Thats why i said i got it from a reseller...

My settings are :

APN usb.mic1.com.lb
Username mic1
Password mic1

For all 3 fields (mobile internet, LTE (optional) and personal hotspot)

(The apn settings page on the ipad looks like that)

So my 3 questions are: where is the issue ( sim, device, coverage, settings...)

in the worst case scenario, do i need a new line that again would cost me 50$?

What is the best solution?

Please help instead of saying things like " Oh... 4G... You dont need that 3g is more than enough 4G only burns your usage down"

Sorry for the previous sentence but thats what alfa told me... :(

Hi,

4G is not supported on all Apple devices in Lebanon yet. The Apple license to do so is still pending.
Oh ok so you're saying that due to the fact that apple has not given alfa a license for the ipad 4, it is currently impossible to receive alfa's 4G service on it?

The iPad mini seems to be licensed though since i've read a review about the 4g network from someone who used one.

Ok so I will be able to benefit from it as soon as apple gives a license right? But will they? Hope they're not just gonna give one for the iPad 5...

But in all cases everything else except for the licensing stuff is right is it? No need for any "USIM" or a new line or anything?

So theoretically I could take the sim out of my iPad, put it inside a licensed dongle, iPad mini, or any licensed android tablet?

Any ideas when such a license would be given would be appreciated :)
3 months later
I have a question. Are there any plans for the phone providers to implement calling on the LTE SIM cards? For now it's only mobile data.
11 days later
Hi, I have the s4 i9505, which has the 4g chip. Touch sent me an SMS saying that 4G works on this phone, but I still don't understand how to subscribe to 4G with this phone.
Is 4G actually available for mobiles ?
2 months later
Touch have released 4G on mobile phones. I have a 4G capable phone so I headed down and got a compatible sim card. I tethered my LTE connection to my laptop and ran a speed test, you can see it below.

Almost 2.5MBs per second you can effectively consume your alotted quota for the 19 dollar plan in less than 4 minutes.
I have the I9505 and can access 4G if I wanted to but I just don't need it. If I needed the speed, I'd use it to watch videos. If I was watching videos, I'd be paying hundreds of dollars for the very cheap bandwidth from our very fair and caring mobile network operators. 3G does just fine with everything else I use it for.

I agree with the users who said the effort put into 4G should have gone into improving our DSL. I don't even have DSL. I have the "internet guy."