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."
14 days later
Hello!
I don't understand the new device + data plans deals https://www.alfa.com.lb/LTEDevices/About.aspx
So to get 10% (1$) on a 150mb 4G plan I have to:
-Buy the phone from them
-Buy the 1.5GB plan
:/
????
At 30$ per month you have the phone + unlimited 4G in France,here you have the device for 650$ (HTC One) + 100$ per month,they really think we don't see what's happening in real and normal countries?
Is the minster still on twitter? We should make a petition or something they give us 500MB 4g plans? Are they serious? We should petition for a 10 dollar 1g 4g plan at the very least.
5 days later
@vegetaleb Actually the 4G is limited, but it's 20 GB so...
I think we should petition for unlimited ADSL.
Unlimited ADSL is working after 11pm though we are many years behind Europe and US in terms of speed.
The advantage of unlimited 3G/4G is the use of GPS maps in cars
2 months later
4G/LTE is now supported on All iphone 5s models, 5c and model limited on 5. However the only reason to make it work is to upgrade your IOS to 7.1 which the apple agreement states with ALFA telecom, and this is set LTE per profile version on iPhones.

[updates]However I got it working on 7.0.4 retaining JB. Peace!
can you share with us how you did this ?
7 months later
Hello guys I was wondering what settings does one need to enter in LTE cellular settings under iOS. An iPhone more precisely.
And oh do I really need to get a new SIM card?
Thanks!
8 months later
Let's start a petition for upgrading the 500mb per 10$ plan to 1.5gb
Apps like facebook use 3x more data now than it was last year
10 months later
I've been downloading 60gb over 4g.
Peak speed was about 13mbps (at night, in fact around dawn)
during the day it varied between 4~8mbps.
Not that bad right?
@ballad It seems "plans" are a BIG Lie.
I got an sms that I've reached the limit of 60GB whilte at 56GB..
"4gb men hon, 4gb men honik.." I bet they're ripping from all the bundle as well..
No wonder they are making millions.
One of their tricks is assigning 60000MB instead of 60GB which is around 58.6GB.
What a blast..
I wish i got 58.6 at least :/