Almost, we have limited DSL coverage from long time for corporate customers.
But most of them we switch to our solutions, cause it is unreliable (sometimes going down at raining, or burned at ligthening). But still few is on DSL, who is stable.
We are making deal with Ogero, but it is hard. Conditions to run it not very appropriate, and we are highly interested to find way to run Flatrate DSL, not ***G/month.
7 days later
Hello is VISP closing ? 3 days without internet strange :o i heard that goverment gonna cloose VISP ... ? is that true ?
I manage to run browsing, MSN, few other applications on reduced capacity. Yes, games will not work, if you call it "no internet", for sure.
So it is not completely true, but it hits us very hard. I will explain why:
Most of our backbone uplink is from private Lebanese company. We are supposed to have backbone from Ogero telecom, but since we apply and got ISP license (you can see it on telecom ministry website) they manage to give us 128Kbit/s and by various reasons delay to give more, even we finish all paperwork and paid all fees. How they say here "Inshalla, bukra". Actually what they are doing - violation of law.

Seems new minister or someone near him approving recently very nice actions to grab all this business under their hands and force all people in Lebanon to pay "per traffic", since we are only one company who is trying to provide internet "flat rate". As i know Ogero suspend now installations of new DSL, because they are not capable to run it with current prices. They use obsolete and very basic "ready made" technologies, which will not let them compete with other ISP's. So they have two ways - evolve and make service better... or kick out other ISP's from market by their government power. Seems they chose second way.
The company who provide us connection suddently stop to work at Saturday morning. Equipment ceased. As gov't officials says "it is illegal". On my information, there was nothing illegal. Before working with them, i checked ip's, they was few C ranges away from Ogero telecom, owned by same company.
To be exact i have some numbers kept:
Ogero MX server for mail (MX record) 205.177.180.160
Our IP was 205.177.186.74
Traceroute also was all clear, going over some major backbone, and i compare Ogero and ours - it is completely same. I am experienced in such things, and i know there is few ways to trick things, and i am very choosy about illegal things and will refuse to work with anything that is "wrong".
I (and my bosses) was thinking it is just "proxy" company who is taking from Ogero.
So whatever officials says it will apply to Ogero telecom too.

As i know they was doing the same "raid" for Pesco telecom, steal equipment they can take with them very fast, till noone understand what is happening, damage more equipment that they cannot take, much more as possible, and run away. Because on same location(that time it was Tripoli, big telecom tower) was our 2 servers (proxy and router for few customers), they damage all that too. Even UPS. Sure they wont return anything.

Additionally they did it at Saturday early morning, so noone can do anything, and few days ISP will be down. Sorry to say, but how this part of government work now it is more looks like terrorism or racket. If situation not going to change, people have to think well, who they are electing soon. Telecom and technologies going to see very hard time in near future then.
Nuclear mate.. am not saying anything am just asking cause i heard from people and arround That VISP gonna close just wanna be sure if that is true or not ? no more and is this problem gonna solve soon hope so ? iam asking here cause i cant even login to support page to ask and know :S
And about DSL it is true i keep calling about when they gonna come to install my dsl and thep keep saying Sorry " 3ena daghet" am not blaming you or VISP for real i know that we living is shit country metel mab2ol el matal " 7akema 7arameya" but what can we do nthing for real and about election we all know who gonna win this election and we all know nthing gonna change except faces and some names ...
If all will go right way - in 1-3 days everything will be fully operational.
I'd say to expect more raids in the near future xD, maybe the minister is going to do that link with the gulf, and then he wants to showcase that he's providing the best internet connection possible(by gimping other providers, we all know that the link is a sob story xD)
Probably it is related to some other ISP. As soon as VISP went down, IDM went to president palace and told, "Ur internet down, we propose to switch to us". They didnt knew for corporate customers we have backup... so maybe there is some unfair competition running. Anyway our lawyers is preparing papers regarding all that, and also we will run backup capacity that will almost match what we had before.
hehe, I thought something went wrong this weekend..
There were also some websites like gmail and hotmail we couldn't manage to get to them, only by bypassing proxy. Sunday late at night everything worked but no online gaming. That's understandable regarding the situation.

Let's hope they will grow up and let visp alone, I really don't want adsl... it still sucks :(
/cry /sob i can't watch yet this week's episode of 24 nor heroes waa waaa :P
Thats not only in lebanon, thats how business works in the arab world. The company I was working with went through the same problem in saudi arabia, they got all their equipment confiscated.
Im sad that happened...
rolf wroteThats not only in lebanon, thats how business works in the arab world. The company I was working with went through the same problem in saudi arabia, they got all their equipment confiscated.
Im sad that happened...
AND SO WHAT??? Are you criticizing the arabic world? DO YOU KNOW that 500 million years ago arabs used to have a bath (hamam), whilst Europeans have been doing that job outside ?

:cool:

Now seriously - yes, that is the way Middle East works. You need to live, to eat, to drink, to breath --> IT IS ILLEGAL, but the government does
not provide you with a legal way. Ok, 80% of the Internet access in Lebanon is illegal, ISPs take Internet from outside via satellite dishes and
some - via microwave links from Cyprus. Fully agree - it is illegal. But did the goat-fuckers provide them WITH ANY OTHER CHOICE? The ISPs
want to be legal, but there is no way.
All ISPs are crap. The government is crap.
lol xterm lebanon is crap so sure ISP and goverment should be crap 2 :P
it is mostly the Gov. and mostly US who don't know how to act
sometimes , ISPs can't do much, there are the regulations and such
and actually those ISPs are actually the politicians in the gov.

stupid greedy politicians ... everything is a mafia game for them... either do this or we kick you out... we are the strong guys, they don't care about the citizens/customers... they don't really wanna provide us with good solution

for fuck sake... look where the region is... if we don't have basic internet.. what do we have.. how can we work.. all the IT and businesses are suffering ... nothing is really competitive... we are standing still... it is not just about some ppl who want to play online games...ppl who want to download lot of videos and do somehow demanding connection tasks.. it is the whole infrastructure suffering and going backward while the world around is going at supersonic speeds
it is really annoying... and more than annoying... life depressing.

and a big part of it is our fault... we leave them to do this ... we are either silent or giving up about the situation

Some guys have been working on something really serious regarding this.
I hope soon we will have something to "suggest" and I hope lot of fellow geeks will join the effort.. cuz it will be based on everyone of us to make it work.

sorry for the off-topic.. but since this was turning into general discussion, i just posted my thoughts
I wish the VISP ppl can solve all this , they are an ISP that were trying to do "Good" stuff despite all the problems they were put into.. and i hope this is not some "vengeance" act.
I wish some other ISPs have their tech team or at least sales team on this forum... i want to know their feedbacks
we all know why they doing this to VISP it is the only one that give unlimited download and let us talk real here 90% of da7ye netcafe is from VISP and if they closed VISP or whatever happen many people gonna loose there jobs WTF is going i dont care anymore about home user even am one of home users but i can imagine when like 10 20 netcafe gonna close in my place and like 50 persons gonna be without any job or any shit ... wel sabab chou kermel sherke tenye testafed aw maba3ref chou bekafe ba2a !!! no one in lebanon work legal men el ra2es la zabel kelo byesro2 wkelo bado masle7to wbass y7oto 3a2lon by cherke m3ayne bya3mlowa heye el wa7ede behal balad 3am tesro2 sorry for arabic bass 3anjad fe2sene eno 3am shouf 3alam 3nda wled 3am yekhrab bayta kermel maskheret Ogero aw maskheret maba3ref men !! nshalla ykon wesletkon what i mean
batroun city has been out of internet connection for like 5 days !

translation so nuc can understand
like 50 persons gonna be without any job or any shit... and the reason is that for another company can benefit or someone i donno who.... i think it is enough already ! .. no one in lebanon works legal from the leaders and top to the garbage guy , all steal and everyone wants only his own good, but when they are determined to destroy a company, they make it look like it is " the " company in charge of all the robbing and stealing.
sorry for the arabic.. i am just going out of my mind , cuz i am really pissed seeing families with kids and houses being destroyed (negatively affected) and all this happening so ogero or somebody's companyy !!!
( hope u got what i mean )

--- and as a reply. lebscream.. it is not that those companies don't want to go legal or are avoiding legal procedures.. they have license... they applied for papers and procedures...they just have to wait "nshalla bokra"... it is just a very dirty game.
or the gov. makes it obsolete... to have internet from the new backbone you have to pay 100 Million Dollar fee (i am serious ) ... this is like saying : go F*** yourself ! seriously

the solution is not to keep the illegal ways.. it is provide alternative first, then remove the illegal ways
Well, the first hand who did it - it is telecom minister Jebran Bassil. Already he have been questioned, why he stop "illegal" and at same time he (and his predecessor too) didnt gave alternative before? All ISP's will be happy to use Ogero backbone, officially and pay for them (current official price is perfect), but they DONT GIVE, even all papers done and fees paid, and they dont give any reasons why they dont give.

I'm awaiting answer for Aoun party (Jebran Bassil is with Aoun) about this case also. If nothing is done, probably it will hurt them much on upcoming elections.
mir really thank for translation i feel really bad when i see many Friends reseller dont know what to do now ... and as u said no alternative and it is impossible for netcafe to get ogero accounts with limits or any other company cause all of account is quota and this really bad for netcafe .. :)