Seems that main infrastructure shifts are happening on our internet backbone – those graphs from renesys show that Tata telecom is taking over from Cyprus Telecom Authority for Internet transit into Lebanon.

In other updates, Ogero asked ISPs to make 2 BGP peers or 2 points of connectivity to the internet

Source: www.renesys.com

بالدرهم hosted Abir Ghattas to shed light and discuss the internet situation in Lebanon, after the report that we published earlier this month.

Those reports showcase the evolution of upload and download internet speeds – internet penetration rates in the region as well as the prices in the neighboring countries. Our goal is to have a fact based positioning of Lebanon’s internet.

Download speed timeline

Upload speed evolution

Current download speed ranking (Lebanon ranks at position 162 out of 174)

Current upload speed ranking ( Lebanon ranks at position 173 out of 174)

Worldwide countries ranking over time

(don’t miss to press the play button, click on explore data for full view)

It is interesting to notice that most countries in the region are in the slower part of the chart.

Regional ranking over time

Internet penetration (world bank indicator)

Lebanon compared to world average

Lebanon and countries in the region compared to world average.

Prices

We understand that the average pay in each country is different, the market size and packages vary in radical ways… but it is still interesting to try and compare Lebanon to UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Syria when it comes to internet prices – specially that those countries are considered to be “competitors” in the telecom sector.
Internet prices in Egypt Source

0.5 Mbps – quota : 5GB – price: 75 egp = 12.5 usd
1 Mbps – quota : 10GB – price: 100 egp = 16.56 usd
2 Mbps – quota : 20GB – price: 150 egp = 24.84 usd
4 Mbps – quota : 40GB – price: 250 egp = 41 usd
8 Mbps – quota  : 80GB – price: 400 egp = 66.25 usd
16 Mbps – quota : 160GB – price: 700 egp = 116 usd
24 Mbps – quota : 160GB – price: 1250 egp = 207 usd

Internet prices in Jordan (source)

1 Mbps – quota 5GB – price 15.9 JD  = 22.5 usd
up to 24 Mbps – quota 20 GB – price 29.9 JD = 42 usd
up to 24 Mbps -  quota unlimited – price 39.9 JD = 57 usd

UAE ( source )

Talk, surf and watch packages

8 Mbps – 279 AED  = 76 usd

16 Mbps – 339 AED  = 92 usd

24 Mbps – 429 AED = 116 usd

Internet prices in Syria ( source ) 

0.25 Mbps – price: 700 SY

0.5 Mbps – price: 1050 SY

1 Mbps – price: 165 SY

2 Mbps – price : 2850

Internet prices in Lebanon 

Ogero:

IDM:

Cyberia:

Sodetel:

TerraNet:

Bubble chart for internet download speed variation

since we obviously love infographics and smart charts, here is a last bubble chart that represents the evolution and variation of internet speed in the region between the different countries.

We hope you find this post useful. If you have any interesting data to share, feel free to drop us an email at snail101[at]ontornet.org.

Ontornet Meets with Minister of Information

On March 19, Ontornet met with Minister of Information M. Walid Daouk to discuss the latest law he submitted to the cabinet on March 7, the Lebanese Internet Regulation Act (LIRA)   (مشروع قانون للإعلام الإلكتروني).

At the beginning of the meeting, Minister Daouk acknowledged that he should have met and consulted the online community before presenting the law to the cabinet; however his action was driven by his need to fill an urgent legislative gap concerning internet laws.

Ontornet: Why did you withdraw the law from the cabinet agenda?

Minister Daouk: The news that the law was withdrawn is totally wrong, the law was not withdrawn.  When discussing it in the cabinet meeting, it was pointed out that there are several laws, and I was asked to review it. The law was referred to the Committee in charge of Electronic Transactions who is currently reviewing it. It will be discussed, once again, in the ministerial cabinet.

I am truly open to feedback from the online community, and ready to discuss the use of words. I also don’t mind taking their comments and concerns into consideration while reviewing the law. What I ultimately care about is having a good modern law for the greater national good.

Ontornet: There are different types of websites: the news websites (tayyar.org, NowLebanon, Elnashra, etc), personal blogs (BeirutSpring, HummusNation, etc), as well as NGO/Initiative websites (Ontornet, Nasawiya, etc) along with many others. The law you submitted does not differentiate between the different types of websites, does that mean that it applies equally to all types of websites?

Minister Daouk: Today, we all know that the number of websites is constantly increasing. There is nothing in the current Lebanese law that tackles Electronic media, and this constitutes a serious gap in the Lebanese Law: this is the main motivation behind the law.  We only now have the Publications Law in our hands, even though I know that there are 2 laws being prepared now, one by Maharat and PM Ghassan Moukheiber, and another one by MP Robert Ghanem. However my problem is that the legislative process in Lebanon is Lebanon is taking way too long.

So, as I said, the objective for now is to build on what we have (The Publications Law of 1962) by adding a part that will allow the publications Law to interact with electronic media. This part consists of defining what a website is, and of giving the website owner the choice of either declaring his website to the Ministry of Information or not. It is an elective law; no one is forced to comply with it. If one chooses to declare his website he is in return getting protection.

Ontornet: Is there any place where it is mentioned that it the Law is elective?

Minister Daouk: In the legislation writing process, you don’t mention literally that a Law is elective.
But had it been obligatory, the text would have stated “electronic websites MUST” (يقتضي على من يريد النشر بواسطة الإعلام الإلكتروني أن )

Ontornet: Since this is an elective law, what are the incentives for people to register?

Minister Daouk: There are 2 pillars: duties (identification) and rights (IP protection). Once you submit your identification information, you get the Intellectual property protection and you become liable in case you committed any copyright infringement.

Another incentive is that we are creating a way to show credibility by creating this label which is important for brands and online professionals. This is similar to AOC (Appellation d’Origine Controlee) and offers tracability and a kind of self-control.

Ontornet: So you are affirming that people are free to either opt in on this law or not?

Minister Daouk: Yes, indeed. Nothing would change for those who do not register. The law offers the honest more credibility and protections.

Ontornet: Do you consider you are asking websites and electronic media to obtain a “License”?

Minister Daouk: No way on earth! It is just identification. It would be total imbecility if someone wanted to impose licensing of electronic media.

Ontornet: Why did you state limits on the numbers of website owned?

Minister Daouk: Where is this stated? [After reading the paragraph] This is because it is something that already exists in the Publications Law. I needed terms of references and wanted to make sure no distortions were created, so we extended an existing law, one we know well.

Ontornet: Even though Publications Law dates back to 1962 and should not be applied to online media in the first place?

Minister Daouk: I agree on this point, but efforts concentrated on finding an existing “vehicle” that could be used to fill in the gap we currently have, until a better and final media law is issued.

I strongly believe that electronic media is evolving fast and that a law dating from 1962 may not correspond to it but I wanted to set two main values or pillars: someone identifies his information website at the Ministry and gets Intellectual Property protection in return.

Besides, any modification or addition to L.I.R.A occurs through the issuance of decrees within the Ministerial Cabinet, rather than having to draft adopting a new law in the Parliament. This was done specifically to be able to keep up with the speed and fast evolution of media law.

Ontornet: The opening paragraph mentions the respect of public morals and gambling – how is this judged or enforced and does it have any fallouts on freedom of expression?

Minister Daouk: If someone is registering his information website at the Ministry of Information, it means that his content cannot deal with online gambling or break general public morals which is something done in all countries.

Ontornet: Does this law include for example content published on official Facebook pages?

Minister Daouk: I don’t care where content is published – whether Facebook, personal site, blog, etc. It is just that the Ministry cannot give identification to something that deals with gambling or breaking public morals

Ontornet: The big political website are the first people who won’t submit for identification since they are protected and nothing forces them, true?

Minister Daouk: I am not really that sure because they have incentive to protect their content.
For example, few days ago I read about a lawsuit against the Free Patriotic Movement  website- so anyway, those websites are famous, well known and can be sued. By submitting their info they get extra protection.

The Legal Expertise

In light of its meeting with Minister Daouk, ONTORNET discussed the content of the Law with a Legal Expert. The expert noted the following problems with the Lebanese Internet Regulation Act – L.I.R.A.   (مشروع قانون للإعلام الإلكتروني)

The Format

The Law is only one-page long and contains 8 articles. It gives very few details for such a highly technical and complex field.

Inaccuracies

Article 6 refers to the Law on Publications (قانون المطبوعات) dated 14 July 1962 whereas it provides the number of Law 382/94 which concerns Audiovisual Broadcasting (قانون البث التلفيزيوني والإذاعي). This creates confusion as to which law applies to the employees of information websites. It also does not specify which particular articles within this law(s) will actually apply to those employees.

Loose and Incomplete Definitions

The law defines 3 concepts in the first set of articles:

• “Electronic Media” (الوسائل الإلكترونية)  is defined in Article 1.
• “Electronic Communication” (التواصل الإلكتروني)  is defined in Articles 2 and 3 without any apparent reason, since it is not used anywhere else in the Law. What is then the need for this definition?
• “Websites” ( (الموقع الإلكترونيare defined in Article 4 which sets the conditions of website registration in the Ministry of Information.

However, the main “regulation” articles, Article 6 and 7, use the new concept of “Information Websites” (المواقع الإلكترونية الإعلامية)  without any previous definition.

This leaves a number of questions unanswered: What will be considered as an “information website” (and thus will have to comply with Articles 6 and 7)? Is a personal blog considered as an “information website”? Is a public forum considered as an “information website”?

The Extent/Coverage of the Law

Minister Daouk assured ONTORNET that the law is optional and only applies to registered websites as defined in Article 4. In other words, only if an author chooses to register his website will he have to comply with its provisions. See below tweet dated 22/03/2012 “@Walid_Daouk draft law aims to give persons who identify themselves optional more credibility and tracability for their websites’ content.”

However, the optional nature of the Law is nowhere mentioned in the text. Furthermore, the text does not provide clear answers to the below important questions.

• Do Articles 6 and 7 apply only to websites defined in Article 4 (i.e websites registered in the Ministry)?
• Article 1 prohibits Electronic Media to publish immoral content.  Question: Does this article only concern registered websites, or all websites? In case Article 1 applies to all websites, then there is a need to clarify the concept of “public internet content”, and whether for instance social network communications are included or not. There is also a need to provide clear legal protections in order to ensure freedom of speech and online access to information.

Such opacity might give way to a considerable amount of confusion and misinterpretations in the implementation of the law.

Omissions

• The Law does not include mentions of a timeline for further decrees regulating its implementation.
• The Law does not include transitory provisions that are more than necessary in the field. For example, do the provisions apply to content published before the law was issued?
• The Law clearly does not take into consideration international norms in the field.

Non-Technical

The Law does not provide for essential technical definitions and aspects that are specific to the field. Below are a few examples:

• Domain: Does it apply only to websites registered to .lb domain?
• It refers to old (1962) publication norms that are not compatible with the modern nature and technicalities of online publications.

The Intellectual Property Rationale

L.I.R.A does not seem to give any added value to already existing law in the media field. When asked about the purpose of this law, Minister Daouk explained that it will allow media websites to register in the Ministry and benefit from Intellectual Property protection.

However, the Intellectual Property protection provided for in Article 7 only concerns Intellectual Property violations in advertisements that are published on the websites. Moreover, registering in the Ministry and naming a representative manager who can be pursued for any violations, means that registering will not protect the website’s Intellectual Property; it will only make it easier to sue the website if it commits any Intellectual Property violation. In other words, there is absolutely no incentive for companies to register.

Bottom Line

Once again, Lebanese internet Users are faced with a “Good, Bad and Ugly” situation.

The Good: For once, a minister in the current Government takes his job seriously and drafts a Law proposal.

The Bad: The Law itself. It has no added value and its inconsistencies risk to create serious confusions and misinterpretations upon implementation.

The Ugly: The Government is going ahead with L.I.R.A. despite the alarm calls of concerned actors.

We asked: What was the problem with 3G? What was the temp solution and the long term one?

At first the problem with 3G and lines breaking was due to wrong cables causing interference, this is basically when Minister Sehnaoui admitted we have a problem (end of 2011) and said there is a short term solution that will solve things a bit (which has been done), and there is a long term solution. The latter will take up to 8 months; until then, the QOS (quality of service) will remain weak. We need more antennas and station to solve it, they have asked for 1,400 antennas, and it will take 8 months to received them all and install them.

When will 3G cover all Lebanon?

By end of February, we should have 3G coverage in all regions

What about Ogero and the whole unavailable modems issues?

Recently, the public sector (Ogero) start accepting applications for DSL connection again and selling those modems.

What can you tell us about the centrals & DSL situation in Lebanon?

• 15% are far from Centrals. So they cannot apply for DSL.
• Almost 30% live completely outside regions that don’t have centrals.
• For those who don’t even have phone line centrals, around 30,000 like in Baalbeck, and some places in Keserwan – it is still not announced by MOT, but they’re thinking of making something called Fixed Wifi.

We have 170 centrals that are equipped with DSL, some are close, some are farther and some are even farther, and quality of connection depends on how far your house is from the central. Among these people, some people’s phone lines are weak which affects either the quality of their internet connection or not eligible to have DSL after a feasibility test is done.

Then Mr. Sehnaoui joined, and told us the following:

Mr. Sehnaoui persisted the need to distinguish between Mobile Data (improved/leapfrogged with 3G) and Mobile voice, saying people just say “service is crappy” without elaborating on the real source of the problem. He also said that we need to realize that Mobile Data has an impact on Mobile voice, moreover since we had 3G since September 2011, Mobile voice has been influenced (to the worse), however it is not essentially because we have 3G, yet it’s for the reason that the infrastructure is very weak.

Later on, the minister told us about a new dream he has, which is Fiber. He even suggested that we do a new campaign called #OntorFiber. He continued by saying that at one point, we can use Fiber instead of DSL for the centrals that are not equipped to have DSL.

He elaborated that they are currently working on making a study, then tender, then finance.

Sehnaoui said: it’s a new dream, new objective, step into the future, we want people to ask for fiber, fiber is the answer to have unlimited quota. Our target is to have Fiber to home by 2014. For now, we have Fiber to central, which should be ready by October 2012, and it is on the right track. With Fiber we can think of stuff like 3DTV and much more.

We need your help

To sum it all up, while we were at the meeting, I told them about my own personal problem which is the fact that line still cuts a lot, 3G is rarely working etc… Moreover told them that there are many people like me, yet there are many people who have good 3G (this feedback is based on our facebook page and what people tell us). Anyway, Mr. Abi-Nassif wanted a more accurate result, so if you could be kind enough to help us answer the questions (which apply to you), so we can take these results and give them back to the ministry.

Survey about 3G, it will only take 2 minutes.

Survey about DSL, it will only take 4 minutes.

Data will be collected and given to the Telecom Ministry (Upon their request)

Gradual Change – Suspended work on Ogero’s part

• Increasing the speed is a gradual process, there is an “adaptation” time usually measured in few days. Speeds, latency, etc.. will not be optimal from the first day, so please be patient.
• Increasing internet speed needs to be partly done by the MoT and partly by Ogero. It is a gradual collaborative process.
• MoT’s part was fully completed (new packages have been released, legislation passed, paperwork signed, etc…) on the other hand Ogero has refused (according to MoT consultants) to start working on their part yet.
  • According to MoT consultants, Ogero was supposed to program servers and provide equipments to increase speed and capacity 10 days ago, yet that has not been done yet.
  • These servers are in centrals serving 40% of the users. Around 5-6 centrals do  not need to be programmed or equipped; they are ready to receive capacity released by Ogero which can be accomplished in a matter of 2-3 days. These centrals are located in Ras Beirut, Achrafieh, Mina El Hosn, and Jdeideh and represent 40% of the users.
  • 20% of the users are connected to centrals that are far from Beirut and still function in a very old network; they don’t have the capacity to receive more speed. The plan had acknowledged that these centrals cannot handle more speed and capacity.

• MoT consultant informed the Ontornet team that Ogero is using these 20% as an argument not to release more speed to the other 80% and on top of this is demanding 10 million dollars to fix these networks… Whereas if Ogero had started working 10 days ago, 80% of the Lebanese people would be enjoying today a remarkable increase in internet speed.
• Al-Akhbar published that Head of Ogero notified MoT Minister that he will not work on his part.

Regardless of the “reasons” why the changes for a faster internet are not taking place, we as Ontornet users remain the victims.

Internet Downtime

In other annoying news, there has been an internet downtime that affected 40% of internet users in Lebanon due to cable problems with the IMEWE in Marseille.

Thank you for your interaction

As a final note, Ontornet team would like to thank everyone for being so active giving feedback and submitting speedtest results, ISP statistics, answers to our polls – this crowd-sourcing process is giving us an agile way to get actual and honest results of what is happening on the ground in all Lebanon with zero cost!

We are making sure to share your feedback with the main stream media like Al-Jazeera, Manar TV and LBC Group who interviewed us. Here is one of the videos. Good luck loading it!

We will keep you posted as we receive updates and more information.

Sources : El-Nashra , El-Akhbar

Prices drop : 80%
Speed increase : 4x to 8x
The prices of E1 will drop as well from $2,700 to 420$
The Implementation deadline is end of September, which is one month after publication in the official Gazette.

News round on some of the major TV/Newspapers

• LBC News – البعض يسمي الانترنت في لبنان “انطُرنت” فهل يتغيّر الحال؟
• Now Lebanon – Let the countdown begin
• The Daily Star – Cabinet signs off on Internet upgrade
• Naharnet – Lebanese Cabinet to Lower Internet Prices by October
• L’orient le jour – Internet : le Liban ne fera plus, enfin, partie des pays les plus chers !

We shared the updates on twitter / facebook, and needless to say, the news went as viral as if it was a video about a cat!

Being an advocacy campaign, we decided to mirror the community’s opinion, so we created a poll on facebook asking about the users’ opinion concerning the new prices and packages.

257 persons answered the poll (till 26 August 8am). If you haven’t answered it yet, please take a minute and tell us what you think of the new Internet prices here! You can also share it http://goo.gl/XqG5n with your friends to gather more feedback that we can use as a more credible and pressuring result.

We read plenty of feedback on community blogs, our page and twitter account and they all matched the following poll results:

Moreover, these are what a couple of bloggers in the Lebanese blogosphere had to say about these news:

Rami Fayoumi – Plus961.com - Internet prices going down next month

We’re still way behind what people get in nearby countries but it’s still a good step forward, I just hope there will be enough capacity to accommodate the demand when everyone is automatically switched to 1Mbps next month, and I wish they would reconsider amending those bandwidth cap because one would consume them so fast with the speeds they’re promising.

Mark – 248am.com – Internet in Kuwait vs Lebanon

You’ll notice with the new speed and prices, internet in Lebanon is actually going to be cheaper than Kuwait but what I want to highlight here is the download caps. Those caps listed above are the monthly download caps NOT daily ones. Imagine having a 2Mbps internet connection with just a 20GB monthly cap! I got pissed when my 2Mbps connection here in Kuwait got capped at 85GB a month but it’s like 4 times as bad in Lebanon. It really sucks.

Analysis and Research

Lebanon’s New speed positioning: Our country is last in the list when it comes to internet speed. But with these news, hopefully we will no longer occupy that position.

According to NetIndex.com >> all countries and assuming that the average Lebanese user will have a 2Mbps speed and pay  75,000 LL for internet - Lebanon’s ranking will become 123 – just between Papua New Guinea and Tunisia. This is a bit optimistic since the 1Mbps (which will cost 38,000 LL) seems more likely to be the most popular plan among the Lebanese households. In addition to that, we hope that for once, Lebanese users will actually get what they paid for.

Internet caps around the world

• Comcast – the largest home internet provider in USA – ranks 30 in the world, provides  250 GB/month cap (source : nytimes )
• UAE – Etisalat provides 100 GB/month cap (source :uae community)
• Egypt – 100 provides 150 GB/month (source:wikipedia – internet in egypt article)

Those are some quick stats, and  just as a small tease. Moreover while researching different prices and caps around the world, we found out that Lithuania, currently #1 in the world, provides 300 Mbps For $35 – truly unlimited !

Estimated cap usage

Internet speed: 1 Mbps

Cap: 4GB = 4*1024*8 = 32,869Mbits

Duration to fully use the internet cap: 32,869 /3600 =  9.13 hours of internet usage at an actual 1Mbps speed, in case we were downloading a file as big as 4GB.

So concerns over low quota are somehow justified. If you are a heavy internet user, first package is definitely not suitable for you, as it seems to be more suitable for light internet users who like to browse, facebook and chat. The second and third package seem quite reasonable (proportionally talking between speed and cap) and seem that they will be the most common among heavy internet users (at home). Moreover if you look at the 4th option, the 4mbps with 25GB, with such a fast connection, the cap is a bit unreasonable, especially if you compare it to the 3rd option “2mbps with 20GB”.

Infrastructure readiness to operate on the new speed

Data shows most Lebanese households are capable of attaining DSL speeds above 5 mbps over the existing telephone network (source : daily star)

IMEWE Timeline

This was a quick (long) recap on the new internet packages and speed, how will they affect us, what people think about them and if they are some concerns or not.

Please stay tuned for more posts on what to expect, pending points discussed with minister and TRA and for the launch ontornet 2.0. So yes, stay tuned users with fast internet (being optimistic here) users of Lebanon.

Below are the audio recordings that we finally managed to upload. We also put a small summary with each recording for a quick read in case your ontornet could not play the files.

Please note that the summary is not an exact and complete translation/transcribing of the discussion, so please listen to the audio files for the actual live answers.

1 – The former Telecom Minister Mr Nahas  promised that 3G will be active by the end of September 2011, is this deadline still standing ?
3G Deadline
Yes
2 – Are the sales packages and prices for the 3G defined yet ? if yes, what are they ? if not, why and when will it be defined ?
3G Prices
No, prices are not yet defined – no further details were given
3 – Did the ISPs get additional bandwidth from IMEWE ?
IMEWE and ISPs – part 1
IMEWE and ISPs – part 2
All the ISPs got the additional bandwidth they requested 2 weeks ago
But we did not notice any big changes in the speeds ?
Yes, there was a change of speed but not for Ogero users, but other ISPs yes
But at ISPs everyone got a speed increase ?
Yes, everyone

<off the record>

We expected that after additional bandwidth, prices would go down

No, I have to submit an official request at the cabinet to get the approval for price changes

Even changes for the Fair usage policy has to be approved ?

To sum it up, yes, even changes in Fair usage policy has to be approved, it is a bit more complicated, but eventually yes.

No tangible changes can happen without the decision of cabinet – which we are doing as fast as possible to include drastic measures.

4 – Can we get exact ideas about the packages that you are going to propose in the cabinet ?

<off record> I can not give you exact numbers before i share them with at least the 28 other ministers – but to give ranges – speed will increase 4 to 8 times, not including the quality – if you include quality of service the increase will go up to 18 times faster
Currently users get 20% for what they pay for – now it will go up to 80% and will go like 8 times faster
Regarding the prices – they will remain the same – but users will get more speed meaning the price is effectively lower.

5 – How much of the IMEWE Capacity will be used ?
used capacity
used capacity will be 10Gegs
only 10 out of 120 ?
yes 10 out of 120
what triggered this change ? we’ve been waiting for long, we’d like to know what happened
Weather – it is bit cold and snowy in Tripoli
this question is too investigative, i can not answer

6 – What are the plans for more competitivness in the ISP sector ?
Competitivity
The ministry considers competitiveness as something really important – but now we are still working to restructure the telecom sector
Will there be efforts for users to be able to switch ISPs without waiting and additional costs ?
this is an objective.

7 – With DSL getting faster and cheaper, what is your plan to create demand for the new 3G service which is more expensive ? What are the incentives for people to switch and cover the costs and network maintenance?
DSL vs 3G
There are no ministry plans to control the market – What we have to do is lower the price to democratize the access – we want to allow the maximum number of people to access the 3G service while keeping its good quality. The main incentive for people is mobility. There can be no financial incentives because you can not compare prices between 3G and DSL – 3G is always more expensive.
This mobile access is a leap forward/jump from the slow Edge – Our plan to improve the internet situation is in 3 steps :

step 1 : fixed lines/DSL to get better and cheaper – very soon to happen

step 2 : 3G to become fast and available

step 3 : this service (3g) that doesn’t exist except in few countries around the world to become cheap

8 – We know that the ministry and Ogero relationship was tensed. Is there any improvement on that ? if yes/no – How will it affect the internet market?
Ogero
It is not the relationship between Ogero and the Ministry that is “tensed” or “not good” – there were some people in Ogero that did not apply the law as must and are not accepting the minister’s rights. This what caused a problem with people in Ogero.

“but when we are talking about people in Ogero – it is the

No, there are lawsuits between many parties, including el moudir el 3am / president

9 – on June 11 – Shura supsends TRA’s authority , yet in 07 July 2011 – Lebanon’s TRA was appointed head of Arab telecom regulators network, Can a suspended TRA be nominated – is this legal ? What is the role of the TRA on the head of Arab telecom and are there any possible advantages for lebanon.
TRA
Minister: This is a legal, not telecom question
Minister consultant: I would challenge this qualification that TRA is suspended
Ontornet: This is from Daily star article
Consultant: Well the translation is not accurate – if you read the arabic text – i would not say TRA suspended
Ontornet: So what is the role of TRA ?
Consultant : It is hard to give answer without diving into legal details
Minister: but to help a bit , shura said that 431 did not pass all its stage, it is a law that draws some kind of plan that get exceuted over time shura said that a main law was not enforced, meaning that the secondary and supporting “band” are not effective. So the TRA is not suspended, it means that ministry powers are not transferred to it yet – so it becomes a consultative body – and this is what the law says.

10 – What is the progress of work in the different areas on the Lebanese territory specially outside Beirut

Infrastructure

our main program is fiber that is supposed to cover all lebanese territories in the next 15 months
Are you facing any problems in the execution of work ?
as in everything – delays and problem may happen – but we are very hopeful to meet the deadline

11 – Are there any legislation being worked on to organize duct sharing and building codes ?
we are thinking about this, but there is nothing ready yet. This is a multi ministry effort and i am still new

After our 11 questions, the time for the interview was up, but we had a small chat with the Minister on social media, online community in Lebanon and organizing a tweetup/online Q&A with the Minister, we leave you to listen to the Minister’s take

SocialNetwork

What is an Internet Exchange ?

“An Internet exchange (IX or IXP) is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers (ISPs) exchange Internet traffic between their networks.

The primary purpose of an IXP is to allow networks to interconnect directly, via the exchange, rather than through one or more 3rd party networks or go on the international backbone. “

The advantages of the direct interconnection are numerous, but the primary reasons are cost, latency, and bandwidth. IX also improves routing efficiency, fault tolerance and allow the aggregation of internet speed for example.

In other words, when you are sending a file to your friend across the street instead of this file having to go to somewhere in china or the states then come back to you – the IX will ensure that the traffic stays local between the ISP of the same country without having to pay international tariffs for it.

This creates a huge benefit by having a cheaper, faster, less error prone system..

In slang terms or geek speak, an IX is called “local loop” – and usually end users don’t pay for traffic inside the local loop.

You can find here a list of the IX around the world http://www.datacentermap.com/ixps.html

Worldwide, the IXP that handles the most incoming data is : CIX Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange in Germany with a maximum throughput of 3206 Gbit/s, average 945 Gbit/s

The IXP that has the most connect ISPs to it is Equinix Excchange and it connects 768 ISPs.

As you can see Internet exchanges are really important for a good internet service.

Patch panel in Amsterdam Internet Exchange

So in Beirut, we have this Internet Exchange ?

Yes, we do! The Beirut internet exchange is located in Berytech ESIB, Mar Roukoz, Mkalles

You can view all details on http://www.beirutix.net – you can also  follow @BeirutIX on twitter for interesting events and updates related to the internet in Lebanon

In fact the Beirut internet exchange started as a yallastartup initiative – not something by the government – and the following parties are interconnecting :

• Berytech
• IDM
• Cyberia
• Moscanet SAL (WISE)
• New COM
• Packet Clearing House
• Sodetel
• Solidere BBN
• Terranet
• Virtual ISP

By comparing this list to the official ISP list of Ministry of telecom – we notice that the following ISPs are not included in the IX :

• Ogero
• Trinec
• Net Link
• Farah Net
• Lebanon on Line
• Comnet
• Broadband plus
• Keblon
• Data Pro Links
• Cedarcom

The interesting thing is that in the Telecom Law – Article 29 – any major ISP with significant market power must interconnect

How well does our IXP work ?

The following measurements and tests were done and posted on BeirutIX Website,

Test 1 was done on Link 1 and is using IXP

Test 2 was done on Link 2 is using International bandwidth

As you can see, trying to reach the same address on Internet exchange takes 9ms while on the regular international bandwidth it takes 100 ms . That’s a lot of difference.

Currently in Beirut Internet exchange there is a windows update server installed – it means that currently, when you download those huge windows update – you are not downloading them from the Microsoft servers in the US – but from servers in Beirut and it does not consume the more expensive international bandwidth but uses the local loop.

However, even though worldwide people don’t pay for local traffic, in Lebanon, sadly the ISPs are being billed for it and in their turn they are billing their customers.

Cool! Can I like take a computer and go make my own servers?

To become a member of the IX, those are the conditions: http://www.beirutix.net/howto.htm

More Details

Make sure to visit the website of Beirut IX on http://www.beirutix.net – you can also  follow them on twitter to stay tuned to the latest works and let’s hope they help bring us a faster and better internet in Lebanon.

Sources :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_exchange_point

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_exchange_points_by_size

http://www.datacentermap.com/ixps.html

http://www.beirutix.net/