Tag Archives | imad kreidieh

Ogero Website Finally Got a Makeover

By Rami on December 26, 2017 in Telecom

Ogero’s website finally just got a very long due makeover! I’m personally used to paying my landline bill online and I absolutely hated how hideous it was… the design was so outdated that one can even doubt the information that were available there were left from the nineties.

Anyway, so I wanted to check my bill today and was surprised with the new version (right now in beta). The website has several new functionalities now such as more controls to the members area allowing subscribers to activate/deactivate phone and internet services, in addition to of course paying bills and viewing previous invoices. Moreover, an online directory has been made available to search for a subscriber’s phone number.

And for those planning to apply for a DSL subscription, a simple form can be used to check the maximum speed supported by their phone line.

Still, some little things can definitely be improved such as making the directory design homogeneous with website look and feel, and changing the way you select a phone number when paying a phone bill because it is a bit confusing right now, but all in all I’m quite satisfied with this new upgrade.

A mobile app is also expected to be released soon by the way, so stay tuned if you prefer to manage your account on the go.

Beit Misk – The First Smart City in Lebanon with Fiber To The Home Infrastructure

By Rami on September 20, 2017 in Telecom

Beit Misk was pronounced over the last weekend as the first “Smart City” in Lebanon after Ogero enabled internet connectivity over fiber optics to the residents there.

Earlier this month Ogero announced it will be offering residential fiber connection to the people of Hamra and Achrafieh but it came as a no surprise to have the Beit Misk residents getting it ahead of everybody else since the project developers took a fiber infrastructure into consideration during construtions, which eventually made Ogero’s job easier to provide this service there.

Speed tests conducted by Chairman Imad Kreidieh during the launching event in the presence of minister Jamal Jarraj reached ~900Mbps which is quite impressive, and I believe it would be great if households there got >50Mbps connections.

Still, the ultimate challenge is of course to provide the same service to Beirut and the other major cities in Lebanon, and I really hope to see some tangible results in the near future.

Ogero New DSL Prices Finally Approved

By Rami on June 8, 2017 in Telecom

Remember the new DSL prices that were proposed by Ogero earlier in May? They were finally approved by the cabinet yesterday with a slight modification and should be effective in a couple of weeks once the decree is published in the Official Gazette.

As I mentioned before, people who will benefit the most are those who live near any of Ogero’s exchange offices since their phone lines can handle better speeds. Others will unfortunately have to wait up to two year until the phone network is upgraded.

As for the minority who is blessed with connectivity using fiber optic cables, the below rates apply.

The above prices are of course only applicable to Ogero subscribers, so we should soon expect other ISPs to announce new competitive packages.

Finally, with respect to mobile data bundles, telecom minister Jarrah also announced that E1 prices will be reduced as well which only makes it logical for 3G and 4G data plan prices to decrease as well, so let’s cross our fingers!

New OGERO DSL Prices Announced by General Director Imad Kreidieh

By Rami on May 11, 2017 in Telecom

Imad Kreidieh, the general director of OGERO, announced on his twitter account last night the new DSL prices that should soon be offered to the public once approved by the cabinet and they are as follows:

2Mbps / Ulimited – 60,000L.L
4Mbps / 40GB – 24,000L.L
Open speed / 50GB – 30,000L.L
Open speed / 100GB – 45,000L.L
Open speed / 150GB – 60,000L.L
HDSL / 100GB – 100,000L.L
Open speed / 200GB – 75,000L.L

Note that open speed means as much as your phone line can handle. And according to the tests OGERO is currently conducting the speeds are reaching up to 10 and 12Mbps for people that are close to the exchange offices. As for free night quota, Kreidieh claimed it will not be available at this stage.

Needless to say, any price reduction to the DSL service is good to us, and I believe these new prices are quite fair. What I also wish is to have the process of switching from one ISP to another made easier since it takes up to two months right now.

OGERO #UnleashTheSpeed – Test Results in Achrafieh

By Rami on April 13, 2017 in Telecom

Today marked the third day in Ogero’s “Unleash the speed” tests for subscribers in Beirut, and among the exchange offices that were included today is the Achrafieh exchange office, so I passed by one of my friends there in the area to test the “unleashed” bandwidth myself!

I eventually used speedtest.net and picked a server in Lyon that I usually use to test my home connection. I performed numerous tests and was impressed by the download speed which was consistent at ~6.5Mbps (3 times the subscription original speed), however the ping latency varied from 90 milliseconds as shown above up to 300 milliseconds, it’s worth noting though that ping to local servers at Cyberia and Connect was consistently less than 50 milliseconds.

Assuming the subscription fees will remain unchanged or hopefully decrease, the speed upgrades are much welcome but the latency thing should definitely be reduced to provide a better experience for online gamers. Aside from that, the ultimate challenge for Ogero will of course be to cope with the increasing demand on bandwidth once they remove the speed caps for all subscribers. People are currently barely getting the speeds they are subscribed to, so increasing line speeds without having the necessary bandwidth to cater for the users is going to be pretty disappointing.

Anyway, I don’t want to be pessimistic about the upgrade plan, but let’s just keep our fingers crossed until it is all done.

The New Connect Ads Are Spot On

By Rami on March 31, 2017 in Telecom

It’s almost the end of the month, and as per Ogero’s new Director General Imad Kreidieh our internet speeds are supposed to double or triple by tomorrow! However, unless he is a magician, I really don’t see how the speeds are going to increase with the current rotting telephone network… I have mentioned it several times before, as long as copper wires are still used to connect households to central offices I really can’t see the connection quality getting better.

I personally have been feeling very frustrated with my DSL connection for quite some time now due to speed and latency degradation in the evening. In fact, I can rarely enjoy online gaming anytime before 10 or 11PM… which recently got me thinking of switching to some wireless internet provider. Using 3G or 4G would definitely be the optimal solution but the bundles are quite expensive for home usage and lack of free night traffic is a deal breaker.

Aside from their witty ads, I have been hearing some positive feedback about Connect and I’m considering checking if they can allow me to test their connection where I live before committing to one of their plan, and I will definitely subscribe in case their service was stable throughout the day.

Another possible solution could be to talk to your neighborhood’s “hayda taba3 l cable” who basically provides you with internet by installing a wireless atenna/access-point on your building’s roof. Even though no one really knows where they get their capacities from, they surprisingly provide good speed an latency. A guy I know in Dekwaneh for example gets <100ms latency to google.com which is pretty decent in Lebanon. The drawback however is that the service gets totally fucked during winter time…

Anyway, I will let you know how it goes with me!

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Tag Archives | imad kreidieh