IMEWE cable

Our Internet is below international standard

You’re trying to download a file, load a video on YouTube or even just browsing, but the internet in Lebanon in a nutshell SUCKS! The demand for more internet speeds and reliability is growing with every passing day due to the dependence of most of us on Internet for various reasons. This has made more and more people in Lebanon realize that the quality/price ratio of what they’re getting is surely below all worldwide standards. Hence, multiple movements and screams are going out in order to demand better internet services in Lebanon. Now, what about our current capabilities?

Heard of something called bottleneck?

Enhancing the internet in the whole country is not a simple step. First, consider you have the fastest internet reaching your house (we’re allowed to dream aren’t we?) but your in-house network (PCs, Routers, etc…) are not equipped to process such a speed. Consequently, the speed at your house will be limited. And that’s what we’re facing in Lebanon.

IMEWE cable project links the Middle East with India and Europe.

The famous cable known as IMEWE

Yes, we do have the all famous cable called IMEWE (1), in addition to another submarine cable (Cadmus), which can give us faster internet speeds and capacity which in turn should “normally” lead to a decrease in prices. However, our national network (your house network) is not capable of processing such high speeds (except in certain limited areas) therefore we have what you can consider a bottleneck on our national and domestic network. So to ensure getting better internet service, in this millennium at least, we should have a complete change of infrastructure to cope with the higher speeds and increased demands.

Is our infrastructure ready for such an enhancement?

This sounds like one big huge project but actually it is not; In order to have nationwide internet coverage, we can use the already existing infrastructure, moreover, replace some of the existing equipment, and have new fiber optics (consider them as high-tech cables like those that run through your house or work office network) reaching all the corners of our beloved country. The government already hired “Alcatel-Lucent” to proceed with this, but the question remains whether the work is ongoing or not.

Additionally, this is what we, Lebanese internet users, should demand:

• complete transparency
• a committee that observes these “on-going” works

In conclusion, such a project is feasible because of those famous submarine cables; nevertheless it consists also of pimping our existing national network.

IMEWE submarine cable

We can double the speed now, IF and only IF

Well even though this is our current situation, it doesn’t mean that we cannot achieve higher speeds NOW. Just so that we won’t be shooting at the moon, we should be aware that we can attain higher speeds but not HIGHER speeds.

Our current network can withhold double its current speeds if the necessary “basic” works were implemented on the IMEWE cable (for more technical details about that cable press here). The answer on why doubling the current speed hasn’t happened, yet can be tracked from recent articles we are seeing in newspapers, e.g. arguments happening between Ogero and MoT (2).

3G Technology in Lebanon

So will 3G change our lives?

First of all let us tell you that 3G is a great technology and it is amazing that we finally got it. Now that we got this out of the way, you should know that most people will start thinking that with the introduction of 3G, we will have a speedy connection and very high speeds. Concerning the prices, they are not debatable yet because no official fares and tariffs were released.

Mobile broadband

True that 3G is great, it does give you faster speeds and all that jazz, so why not switch to 3G for all your internet usage? Well, remember, 3G is mobile broadband.

Dongle, a word that everyone is happy to use these days

3G is a type of connection that is NOT only available to your cellphone, smartphone or tablet PC; as a matter of fact, you can use it on your laptop at home, at work, in the coffee shop directly by the means of a dongle that you buy from your mobile operators.

Sharing is caring, no this speed is not yours only

The speeds will be shared by all the users of the same area (technically known as a cell), so imagine that same internet line you have at home being shared by 50 users (being optimistic, it could be much more), hence the speed will be divided by 50.

Keep in mind, there is something called congestion

Before switching to mobile broadband as your primary internet provider, the mobile companies (one company in our case known as MoT) should mature, upgrade and invest a lot of money in their networks to ensure availability of coping with the massive demand that it’s going to face, not to mention that most people will go to 3G to satisfy their need for speed. Once this happens, it will cause congestion on the 3G network, hence causing degradation of the quality of service provided since one of the characteristics of 3G is a phenomenon called “cell breathing”.

Take a deep breath, and read about cell breathing

Cell breathing causes a decrease of power provided by the cell with the increase of number of users on it which will eventually induce fewer throughputs. In addition to those reasons, the cell by itself will have a limited number of users that it can withhold at the same time.

Faster internet, faster download, faster money spending

You should really be careful when subscribing to 3G; it is great but it cannot replace your ADSL 3 connection. Another aspect we should pay attention to also with the introduction of 3G, is that everywhere in the world the telecommunications networks evolve with the evolution of different technologies, which is something that doesn’t happen in our country. To have higher speeds you will need to invest in more advanced technologies, have more “cells” with new technologies embedded in them etc…

So, think about it, would it be wise or reliable to switch to mobile broadband for ALL your internet usage? (Playing games online, downloads, streaming, skype calls, video calls….)

P.s. We would like to mention that when we have faster and more reliable DSL 4 we will have what is called triple-play packages that give us a landline, TV and internet in one box in very low prices (check the prices comparison amongst other information in this presentation). This will be elaborated more in another upcoming post.

If you’re interested in hearing all this live for more details & to answer more of your questions, check out the workshop we’re holding in 2 weeks.

1 IMEWE India-Middle East-Western Europe submarine cable

2 MoT ministry of telecommunications

3 ADSL Assymetric direct subscriber line

4 DSL Direct subscriber line

Photo Sources [1] [2]