Internet in Lebanon - Articles

إلا أنّ ما تقدّم ليس كلّ شيء، إذ يوضح المصدر أنّ الوزير يستعدّ للإعلان عن تخفيضات لتعرفة خدمات الانترنت كافة.

In January 2017, Lebanese President Michel Aoun signed a decree appointing Imad Kreidieh as Director General of Ogero. Established in 1972 Ogero manages and maintains the fixed telephone network and constitutes its backbone infrastructure as well as that of mobile, operators, Data Service Providers (DSP), Internet Service Providers (ISP) and others.
During ArabNet Beirut 2017 in February, Mr. Kreidieh sat for his first interview as Director General with ArabNet Founder and CEO, Omar Christidis, to discuss the expectations and challenges of his mandate among calls for faster (currently it is one of the lowest) and more affordable internet.

Highlights of the interview:

There are Terabytes available for consumption, however the consumption did not exceed 120Gb
Everything will improve in terms of connectivity and infrastructure in 2017
Ogero will provide higher capacities and speeds by the end of March 2017
The subscriber threshold will be doubled from the ability to handle 1M subscribers to 2M subscribers on the fixed line front
Lebanon’s copper network is the most recent network in the Middle East but lacked maintenance, which will be taken care of this year
Fiber optic connections will be provided to offices and workspaces
The first fiber optic connection is installed for the American University of Beirut
Prices will be charged according to consumption and not by speed which allows for higher speed bundles – in which the 2Mb Unlimited package will not be affected in the mean time for different reasons
The minimum speeds will be 75Mb/s to 300Mb/s in the next few years
By end of March 2017 the internet speeds will be doubled or tripled
We all hope this change is implemented in the promised time as Lebanon’s internet and infrastructure is way behind in comparison to the average MENA capacity, speeds and connectivity.

Watch the full interview below:

BEIRUT: Telecommunications Minister Jamal Jarrah Wednesday said that internet speeds could be expected to increase as Lebanon invests in fiber optics and increases its share of under-sea internet cable capacity.

Jarrah said that Lebanon was close to increasing the total share of internet capacity it used from undersea internet cables that run from France to Lebanon through Cyprus.

The capacity of the French-Cypriot portion of the cable is set to increase to 1920 gb/ps up from 310 gb/ps at no cost for the Lebanese state, while Jarrah said Lebanon was increasing capacity from the Cyprus-Lebanon line in cooperation with a Cypriot company tenfold from 60 gb/ps to 600 gb/ps. Jarrah added the changes would only cost the Lebanese state $350,000.

The minister also said a cooperation agreement had been signed with the Cypriot government to ensure a new undersea cable named Europa would replace the current Alexandros cable when it reaches the end of its useful life.

“We are turning Lebanon into a hub for communications in the region ... this is the first step of many, we must initially secure high internet speed here,” Jarrah said.

The minster added that the initiation of fiber optic internet could be expected in the coming weeks, and that all Lebanese would soon experience 50 mb/ps.

“We will move Lebanon from one situation to another that is similar to the world's other large internet centers,” Jarrah said.

Jarrah said the hundreds of thousands of these fiber optic lines would have to be installed, which would cost the Lebanese state $300 million over three years, though he said revenues of around $1 billion could be expected in the fourth year, after the lines are installed.

BEIRUT: A massive project to connect Lebanese internet users with lightning-fast fiber-optic technology has been approved by the Court of Audit, Imad Kreidieh, head of the state-run internet company Ogero, announced on Twitter Tuesday night. The project is a monumental effort. Billed at some $283 million, it envisions connecting 85 percent of users at speeds of over 50 megabits per second – more than 10 times as fast as many connections today.

In February, three local companies won the bid to build the network. SERTA Channels, BMB and PowerTech were paired with international equipment vendors Huawei, Calix and Nokia, respectively.

At the time, Kreidieh expected to launch the project by May 1.

As with several of his self-imposed deadlines, this one has slipped. However, Kreidieh announced the installation of the first “active cabinets” in March and April.

Active cabinets are the cornerstone of Ogero’s plan. Instead of connecting every home and office with fiber – a prohibitively expensive proposition – the company plans to connect fiber to curbside cabinets in much of the country, bringing lightning-speed communication close enough to allow most users to benefit from vastly faster connections.

Fiber will still run straight to the home in some densely populated areas, while rural areas will be connected with wireless technology.

The entire project is expected to be completed in 2020.

Since taking the helm of Ogero in January 2017, Kreidieh has received high marks for his hyperactive push to further speed up Lebanon’s snail-like internet.

Shortly after he took control of the company, it conducted a series of tests to “unleash the speed” in specific areas, resulting in user-reported speeds cracking double digits – sometimes more than 20 mbps.

But these results have not yet trickled down to the masses. The latest Speedtest Global Index ranks Lebanon 133 out of 135 states, with an average broadband download speed of 5.48 mbps.

The index for April 2018 puts Lebanon behind its war-torn neighbor Syria, which has download speeds of 8.61 mbps. The global average is 45 mbps.

Ten years ago, Wi-Fi was universally faster than a cellular connection, but that's no longer the case in 33 countries, according to OpenSignal.

OpenSignal's analysis has found that mobile connections are up to 13Mbps faster in 41 percent of the 80 countries where users have installed its smartphone app.

That's a huge change from when the first iPhone launched and when Wi-Fi was way faster everywhere and cheaper.

The speed difference varies significantly between countries. In Australia, mobile speeds average 34.6Mbps compared with Wi-Fi speeds of 21.6 Mbps, while in Lebanon mobile speeds of 14.8 Mbps beat Wi-Fi speeds of 2.5 Mbps......

nuclearcat wroteOther ISPs sent similar paper too
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