Tag Archives | telecommunications

Mobile Postpaid Users Soon To Be Deprived of Their Monthly 60 Free Minutes

By Rami on April 11, 2019 in Telecom

Minister of Telecommunication Mohamed Choucair announced today that he is considering cancelling the 60 free minutes of local talk-time that postpaid subscriber get every month as part of setting the government budget for 2019.

Minister Choucair made that suggestion based on his own assumption that postpaid subscriber are wealthy people who can afford to pay additional fees on their bills. I’m not making that up as he really explained it to LBCI’s reporter..! Noting that the additional money generated from that move should make up for the decrease in revenue that Touch and Alfa have reported for the year 2018 (a decrease of $200 million from 2017).

Business people usually have a million ways to improve their offerings and their revenues at the same time and I’m sure increasing prices would never be on top of their list. This however doesn’t seem to be the case for Mohamed Choucair who did absolutely nothing for the telecom sector since he was appointed, and this doesn’t only show his lack of experience in the field, but also how desperate is the government to secure additional funds for the upcoming budget which is yet an additional proof of how bad is our monetary situation.

At a time where countries around us are making a progress everyday in the telecom field, we specialize in appointing people who excel at pulling us backwards. Ya3tina l 3afyeh.

Dual SIM Phones and Mandatory IMEI Registration in Lebanon

By Rami on September 13, 2018 in Telecom

Earlier this month the ministry of telecommunication brought back the mandatory IMEI registration as an attempt to keep dealers from smuggling mobile phones into the country without paying any customs duty. In principle, buyers are not required to do anything when buying a legal phone from the local market, but they will of course have to pay the due tax when getting a phone from abroad.

Before this new mechanism became effective, the ministry asked people to insert a SIM card in their old devices in order for the cellular networks to recognize them as “legal” devices in the future. I imagine the majority did it, but some people who use dual SIM phone might have missed to insert a card into their second SIM slot (I know I did!) since each slot has a different IMEI number that should be registered with one of the available networks.

My friend who uses a supposedly legal Sony XZ1 recently tried using a second line in his second SIM slot and received the below SMS from MoT.

Funnily enough, when he contacted 111 to ask about the issue they literally answered “el SIM mish mjamrak” instead of explaining to him that he should have inserted a card into that second slot prior to the first of September. The guy also went to LibanPost to inquire about the fees he should pay in order for his phone to work properly and they had absolutely no idea what should be done in his case!

So in brief, in case you have a dual SIM phone and also forgot about that second slot you have in you device, then you should know it will only function for 90 days when you need it.

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.

So Did Your DSL Speed Improve?

By Rami on August 3, 2017 in Telecom

It’s been three days now since the new plans recently announced by Ogero became effective, and with them came the “open speed” packages which allow subscriber to benefit from the maximum speed their phone lines can handle.

All other ISPs have updated their existing plans well, and the most flexible ones are offered by IDM and Cyberia. Others like Sodetel and Wise have less options, but no matter what provider you are subscribed too you can get a decent plan for ~$20.

I have tested the speed upgrades at a friend in Achrafieh who is now getting ~3.5Mbps instead of the 2Mbps he was originally subcribed too, and at my parents in Kaskas area who are now getting ~6Mbps (The latter spoiled my kid by the way because YouTube videos were loading pretty fast on is iPad! 😛 ). On the other hand, people who live relatively far from the exchange offices will be limited to 1 or 2Mbps.

I personally was quite excited when the plans were originally announced in May, but unfortunately shortly after that I started experiencing disconnection with my home connection that lasted several hours everyday, and extremely low speeds whenever I get lucky and my modem connects. So I followed up with IDM (my ISP) and Ogero to troubleshoot the problem for over a couple of months until I was recently informed by Ogero that the problem is due to a defected cable in my area which cannot be replaced anytime soon, and that I have to deal with my current connection until further notice.

This is quite frustrating to be honest since the monthly subscription we pay for our landlines is at minimum supposed to cover the technical failure that might occur on the network, and that should of course include main cables feeding a whole area…!

Anyway, until a miracle restores my connection, I am currently considering switching to a wireless solution such as Connect which recently updated their plans with higher data caps.

3G Capacities to increase by 50% for the same prices

By Rami on April 18, 2013 in Lebanon

Great news to all 3G users! Minister of Telecommunications Nicolas Sehnaoui announced at NDU today that capacities for all 3G plans will be increased by 50% for the same prices.

It isn’t clear however whether the increase will be immediately effective or it has to wait until we renew the service.

Update:

~~According to The Daily Star, capacities will increase as of May 1st.~~ Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui claimed on twitter that capacities will increase as of May 7th.

Lebanese Bloggers Reinvent the World: Virtual Personas

By Rami on March 2, 2013 in Lebanon

Don’t mind this wild post as it is just my submission to the “Lebanese bloggers reinvent the world competition” competition run by the ministry of telecommunications in Lebanon, and I’m making use of the extended deadline to submit it.

The competition is calling for Lebanese bloggers to come up with some creative invention that might change humanity, and mine is a network device that takes controls of all your senses the second you are born and allows you to be part of the internet, as in living inside it.

With this device you will neither have to go to school to learn new things, nor travel to new places to live different experiences. There will just be a virtual persona of you living on the internet where you don’t only get exposed to unlimited amount of information, but these information can speak to your senses too.

Unlike what we do now, our virtual personas will never have to wake up early to get things done because the internet doesn’t operate from 9 to 6 only. On a typical day, your brain would wake up with that device being online by default, and you would spend an hour with that Korean guy you met the other day at Coursera.org. Next, you’ll have to see how well is your startup doing by checking your revenues and making sure other virtual personas are satisfied with your service. Once you’re done, you might like to click-away to Australia and experience how does it feel to swim with the dolphins. And finally at night, you can take a stroll round ~~Amsterdam red light district~~ YouTube, and learn an additional thing or two about information security from the newly published videos before putting your brain back to sleep.

Your whole life and experiences will of course be recorded and archived on the internet for future generations to be able to travel back in time by watching them.

Now don’t tell me this post in not feasible because you probably would have thought this is the real future if it were coming from some Hollywood movie!

Nadim Gemayel complaining about his internet

By Rami on January 3, 2013 in Funny

Loved Sehnaoui’s replies!

via Racha El Halabi

MoT to start collecting all mobile subscribers information

By Rami on December 7, 2012 in Lebanon

I just heard an announcement on the radio that all mobile subscribers will be soon required to submit their personal information (a copy of their ID + a recent photo) to the ministry of telecommunications in order to keep track of who’s using each an every mobile number in Lebanon.

Mobile shop owners will be responsible for collecting the information of those who buy new phone lines, while existing subscribers will have to submit their information within a few months from now, and their lines will be automatically deactivated if they failed to comply with the deadline (I’ll update the post with the exact date as soon as I know it).

I guess this will be so annoying especially when you decide to sell your phone line, since you will have to make sure the buyer registers it under his name so that you don’t hold responsibility of anything he/she does with it!

Free internet quota at night for everyone?

By Rami on April 4, 2012 in Lebanon

Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui announced on twitter yesterday that unlimited internet quota from 12AM to 7AM has been approved by the government and will be activated as soon as the decision is published in the official gazette.

Some ISPs already have the unlimited night traffic offered to some of there users depending to which telephone exchange office they’re connected. My parents subscription with IDM in Beirut for example gets double the speed and unlimited traffic at night, while my IDM subscription in Aramoun doesn’t because they claim it didn’t pass some “feasibility test” that was performed.

Anyway, I hope it doesn’t take too much time before we get that feature activated for everyone!

MTC Touch slashes calling rates for prepaid lines

By Rami on June 14, 2011 in Lebanon

It turned out that the price reductions I posted about yesterday are really coming and will be targeting owners of prepaid phone lines. According to this article from The Daily Star, MTC Touch is releasing 3 new recharge cards tomorrow for its Magic prepaid lines:

Start: Priced at $10 and has 30 talking minutes (Rate is $0.33/min)
Smart: Priced at $16.6 and has 60 talking minutes (Rate is $0.27/min)
Super: Priced at $30 and has 120 talking minutes (Rate is $0.25/min)

Given that there will be no hidden charges, MTC Touch is offering up to 36% reduction over the current rates ($0.39/min) and Alfa is supposed to follow a similar pricing. Pretty good in my opinion though the calling rates are still considered very expensive compared to the rest of the world. I just hope some day our government stops relying on this sector to fund its treasury and leaves the two operators to really compete on prices and services.

Next on the list is launching of the 3G service, let’s pray for it to arrive on time too!

Update:

Alfa also published the new rate plans for their prepaid lines which are now called “Waffer”. Thanks to Bechara.