Tag Archives | internet

OGERO #UnleashTheSpeed – Test Results in Achrafieh

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.

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The New Connect Ads Are Spot On

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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Amazon Prime Video Now Available In Lebanon

Following the steps of Netflix, Amazon just widened the availability of its prime video service, making it available in more than 200 countries, Lebanon included.

If you like shows like The Grand Tour, you can now stream it from the comfort of your living room at just $2.99/month. Unless, you know, you are living in Lebanon and got a shitty internet connection, then you can disregard this story all together. Thank you very much!

source

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You Can Finally Netflix and Chill in Lebanon!

Netflix_Web_Logo

Netflix just announced today during a keynote at CES the launching of its service in more than 130 new countries including Lebanon! So yeah, you can finally “Netflix and chill” now 😉

The only way to have Netflix in Lebanon and other Arab countries prior to this announcement was by signing up to some US VPN service, but as of today you won’t have to go through the hassle of doing that anymore.

I personally really love their content and used to abuse my brother’s account in Dubai everytime I went there, however the only and most important concern here in Lebanon is whether our shitty internet connection will be able to stream the service in HD. The only way to figure out is by signing up for a free trial which I’m gonna do right away!

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Lebanon Is Finally Getting The Much Needed Internet Infrastructure Upgrade

lebanon internet speed june 2015

I just stumbled upon this really good news about the Ministry of Telecommunications’ plan to upgrade the internet infrastructure by using fiber-optic cables to connect Ogero switching centers to residential and business premises.

The current infrastructures utilizes a fiber-optic network to connect centers together but relies on old copper wires to carry out internet data to the subscribers. The problem with these old wires is that they can handle transferring a maximum of 8Mbps depending on how close to the switching center you live. That’s why 1/3 of internet users in Lebanon cannot get more than 2Mbps to their homes since they simply live too far away from a central office!

The upgrade project will take 5 years to finish as per minister Harb and should allow internet speed to reach 100Mbps. So until that time, expect to encounter a lot of digging around the streets and just pray for the whole thing to finish on time without any major interruption.

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Why is our internet getting worse?

Following the ministry of telecommunications’ announcement two month ago about the broadband internet packages upgrade and price reductions, you would expect the average speed across the country to be significantly better and our global ranking to improve a bit. But unfortunately, this doesn’t seem like the case since a lot of ADSL subscribers are complaining about their connection!

netindex lebanon

The chart above from netindex.com proves people are right. While July was supposed to witness the new plans taking effect, it is instead turning into the worst month for our internet with the lowest speed in over a year!

If Boutros Harb knew the upgrades were not feasible then he should have simply just reduced the prices instead of messing the speeds for the sake of coming out better than his predecessor Nicolas Sehnaoui.

It’s very clear that the top priorities for the minister right now is to work on upgrading the infrastructure to provide households with better speeds as well as supplying internet providers with more E1s to cater for their subscribers.

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Slashing internet prices in Lebanon is still not enough

Following the announcement of the ministry of telecommunications on their plan to lower internet prices and boost speeds last month, we all thought it would now be affordable for us to get the high speed connections we always wanted, and this was proven true after some ISPs started rolling out their plans with 4Mbps subscriptions for as low as $19.

However, it doesn’t seem like this sufficient for us to enjoy the newly offered packages. According to this excellent article by Matt Nash from Executive Magazine, the real problem now lies in the copper wires connecting our homes to the central offices. Apparently, these wires can handle transferring a maximum of 8Mbps given that you live near the central office in your area, and the speed of course decreases as the distance to your home increases.

This is in fact so bad that basically around 1/3 of internet users in Lebanon cannot get more than 2Mbps to their homes since they simply live too far away from a central office!

So I believe the biggest challenge facing the ministry right now is upgrading the existing infrastructure which can cost up to $1 billion if we decided to go for optical fiber. And until then, the maximum speed we are able to get will remain much less than what average users enjoy in other countries of our region.

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ISPs started rolling out their new DSL plans

idm dsl plans

I’ve been waiting for the new DSL plans to come out ever since the ministry of telecommunications announced the price reductions last month, and I finally got an e-mail from IDM this morning informing me that my subscription has been upgraded from 1Mbps / 10GB to 2 Mbps / 50GB for the same price ($27.5).

This was indeed some great news since my speed has doubled and my quota has increased five times, however, I found it odd that users were not given the liberty to choose among the offered plans but will instead have to wait till the 1st of July to place their change requests. For example, I could have chosen to settle for the same quota I had before for $12 only, but IDM and other providers definitely look to keep their revenues the same so they are subscribing us to the plan that matches whatever we’ve been usually paying.

A friend of mine is also subscribed to IDM’s 4Mbps / 25GB plan at $77 and was upgraded to the unlimited 4Mbps plan at $82, whereas he could have simply chosen to settle for the same quota he previously had at $27.5 and spared a whole $55 a month!

So make sure not to proceed blindly with whatever your ISP gives you next months, but rather take a look at all their offered plans to choose what suits your needs, and chances are you’ll definitely end up saving some good money.

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How quickly did Lebanon adopt the internet?

lebanon

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the world wide web, Mashable shared an interesting interactive map by Esri today showing how the web spread across the world over the past quarter-century.

The map shows that 2.7% of us the Lebanese were connected to the internet back in 1998, and the percentage has increased to 8%, 22.5%, and 61.2% in 2003, 2008, and 2012 respectively.

Make sure to check the map here and see where do we stand compared to our neighbors.

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