3G in Lebanon soon?
 

I just checked on twitter the following article that Alfa telecom made its first test on 3G technology.

Any additional information about the subject?

when I see it I'll believe it :@ chbe3na 7aké it's been more than a year of promises already

the only date they gave is early summer, so let's see about that.

I just don't want to get my hopes up anymore then hear about how the telecom minister and ogero are fighting over some crucial cable

Is it going to be capped ? (limited traffic)
traffic limitation is killing me on DSL :S

of course it is going to be capped, even in the US it is capped! oh and check the data plans in europ, nothing comes for cheap.

i think it is gonna be highly expensive and all 3G products' price will increase too.

^^ every cellphone being sold is 3G capable, prices will not get affected.

so if we want to buy a new phone what specifications should we look for? G3.5 21Mbps for what thing ( i think they call it band like GSM)

now i'm confused:P to get HSPA+ u need a phone labeled 4G. however, some networks provide HSDPA at 21mbps and more. basically, you will not attain the quarter of that speed so any phone that is HSDPA/HSUPA capable should be enough.

here is what confused me...

well the whole thing confuses me :hawhaw: why can they speed up internet on phones but not on computers? isn't our original problem that the bandwith for lebanon is small?

they will speed up the internet in order to provide 3G. i think 100mbps is enough for the 3G of the whole country.

they will take it from the total bandwith we have aw they are importing more?

I am not too excited about ogero's fast expansion of the DSL service either... they don't have enough bandwith to split as it is

^^ they will get more bandwidth for sure, it isn't hard for ogero to get bandwith, however, they are not selling it for cheap.

Alfa 3G

Here you go

I heard that MTC were making their tests yesterday. Any news about the subject?

Someone on my timeline tweeted that charbel na77as said: " 3G will be available from the 1st of September"

I tried 3G for the first time today.
My first impression is the following:

It loaded videos like 512kbps or 1mbps connection.
High latency.

I will be among the testers most probably, i will make sure next week basically.

so it's not a 3G 21.5 mbps after all
can i be a tester? i do lots of video calls using iphone/ipad

keef ?

I got my Alfa testing sim from the owner of a mobile software & services company not from Alfa straight.

Alfa are providing independent sims for testings and not on the same sim for testing unlike MTC Touch

Today was my first day as 3G tester and the coverage was very very weak at least from my place; it was always failing over Edge.

However, the time i was able to get signal at best i got a max download speed of 42kb/s however someone on Twitter mentioned that he reached 73kb/s without interruption with MTC Touch.

I think it should be around 1-2mbps.
Remember these are the first days of testings, besides as i mentioned above, the 3G coverage at my place was so dead.

I played Youtube videos on MTC 3G yesterday morning. It was obviously above 512kbps.

Ow, the testing accounts have a quota of 3GB/month.
As for the quota and plans, nothing has been decided yet.

Walla Ya X 3ala seeret el new PATHETIC DSL plans, I don't expect reasonable plans ( capacity limit / cost ) for the 3G service. Lebanon is always going to be ( sorry for the word ) bi teez el kheil when it comes to technology. wlak iza we needed to hack / DDOS some israeli websites ma fina !!

I'm not gonna deny the fact that we've always been behind when it comes to technology, however i totally dislike the pessimist and nagging attitude without accepting the fact that things started to change.

If you track down the reason behind the slow connection in Lebanon, you would have known that the primary bottleneck is no longer there.
Lebanon currently has access to a major international cable which hadn't been the case.

The MOT purchased 10Gbps in addition to the existing ~2.5Gbps; BUT this is just the start and we have access to more and more bandwidth to cover the country demand when needed. The quota and bandwidth will certainly increase in a matter of few months.

From the other side the internal network is totally ****ed up, the entire country is being re-wired with fiber optics and the project is supposed to see the light by the end of 2012 early 2013.
This will allow us to have better connectivity in a sense of stability, latency, bandwidth and coverage.

I won't lie to you and say that the upgrade is at the level of my wishes, however i am really glad that the dates set by the MOT are being respected and not put in the drawer for good and they're working on improving all the technology aspects.

Let's give the MOT and this government some space to prove itself; in my opinion they've been doing way better than the previous governments.

Finally, let's keep our fingers crossed to see some real improvement =)

Most of what you said is totally true and I do agree with it, however that's exactly why I am pissed off and that work should be done in 2012 before the pessimistic 2013 comes .... COZ it's the elections and things can get f***ed up but if it were to be completed in 2012 ... m3awadeen bi Lebanon what gets done stays as is.

3G will be available for pre-paid and post-paid users starting Nov 1st.
Some of the packages:

10$ = 100MB
19$ = 500MB
99$ = 5GB

Extra usage costs 4 cents / $0.04 per MB.

Wtf, these prices are "maskhara"!

There is NO MIDDLE Package, tab balki bade ana 2gb? aw 3gb?

fe fare2 beyn 500mb w 5gb :S

The 100 Mb thing for 10$ 3am tda7ekne ktir :P

I said "some of the packages" akid fi gheir.

As for the quota and prices, it's good for a start.
3G is not meant to replace DSL anyway and is fair enough as a start.
Any plan is better than the stupid Edge we currently have which is 120MB for 15$/month for a max of 3kb/s speed.

The prices are not that bad to start with.

for example where I am in Canada. I do have the 6GB plan which I am paying $30 for (this plan is only available when signing a new 3 years contract) and the other options are $25 for 1GB and $10 for 500MB.

On a phone, in average you will never go above 500mb that would include all the browsing you do plus the VOIP phone calls.
The only time I did go above that and to 1.6GB was when I watched couple movies on Netflix and was doing many video calls.

no the plans are akeed a good start, w they r not meant to replace DSL
bas ma3o 7a2 google b osset l 100mb :P..eno..walaw:P

guess what, THE PLANS ARE BAD AS A START.
Multiplying the quota by 2 makes them a good start. i'll be subscribing anyway.

I don't care anyway... I have internet at home and in uni and most of my friend's house, and if I were anywhere else, I don't think I am supposed to be on the internet to begin with :p

http://www.alfa.com.lb/miniwebsite/Default.aspx

But areas with coverage are funny.