Business Internet in Lebanon

[Tinman]

Do ISPs in lebanon offer businesses faster internet, such as T1 lines or anything besides the standard DSL ?

If so what are the prices, limitations etc...

Thanks !

[Kingroudy]

the E1 line is sold by ogero for 3000$ (although they buy it for 30, that makes profit more than drug dealing). you will also need to pay transportation fees (GDS) and maybe VAT.

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by Kingroudy

the E1 line is sold by ogero for 3000$ (although they buy it for 30, that makes profit more than drug dealing). you will also need to pay transportation fees (GDS) and maybe VAT.

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I went on the lebanese telecom site (what a shame) but I'm not understanding their pricing model....


So after installation fees, it would be 20,000 * 31 (channels) flat fee, and on top of it call fees ?


source: http://www.mpt.gov.lb/isdn.htm#Howmuch

Primary Rate Access & Channelized E1 digital lines

Installation 6,000,000 LL.
Maintenance 600,000 LL.
Deposit 1,500,000 LL./link Monthly Rental fee Channel (1 to 31) in & out lines 20,000 LL. * N ;
N = channel used from 1 to 31 charge of call / minute 49 L.L. Channel (1 to 31) receive only 5,000 LL. * N ;
N = channel used from 1 to 31

[Kingroudy]

the E1 line is composed of 30 lines of data (30x64kbps) 1 for signaling (which you will pay for) and one for synchronization (which you will not pay for).
now, you will pay 31*20k= 620k to get the channels. and 31*5=155k for ~2mbps download. now here comes the pain. 2 mbps for upload will cost you (31*49*60*24*365/12) that's 2772k. add the VAT and you get 3900k. add the 600k maintenance and you get the exact (estez ana) 3000$ i was talking about.
malla dawle

[Tinman]

3ama mana dawli !

and I thought Canada was a ripoff....for 3000$ I can get 2 T1 lines

thanks for the info. so what do businesses (IT) in lebanon use ?

[Kingroudy]

they are pretty ****ed up. they use the same solution, or they go to sodetel and IDM for even worse solutions.

[Sheriff Ice]

We use 512 kbps or 3-4 256kbps we are really ****ed up.
When uploading a site of 40 mb will take 2 days sometimes lol

[mr_j]

it's not the government's fault, it's our people's fault. the government represents the people, it is always the case, retarted governments are the results of retarted societies.

now let me demonstrate here why the slow internet is our fault(it is my fault too )
1)what exactly are we doign in order to pressure the government to improve our internet?
2)what are we doing to raise people's awareness on the importance of cheap high speed internet in lebanon?

our programers are maybe the best in the world, and our wages are relativly cheap, starting salaries abraod for a CS major is like 2000-3000 $ a month, in lebanon 1000$ per employee a month would be great as a starting salary, software companies would have loved to open branches here if we had a good internet. but assume microsoft or electronic arts open a branch here, and we design for them a 1 GB worth of code a month(masalan and that is the least) can we upload them?

internet could have done alot to jump start our economy, make web hosting possible, we could have hosted online games, created our own social networks liek facebook and such here in lebanon. projects worth millions of dollars

but everyday our people learn to accept the world the way it is, and accept the country the way it is, you hear words like"well this is lebanon" or worse"God will eventualy give us justice" and then we envy europe

the french hanged their kings and priests on ropes before they got that internet no country got their prosperity handed to them on a silver plate

[Tinman]

I don't live in Lebanon but I'm thinking of doing business in lebanon that's why I'm asking. Small companies cannot force the government to do anything. The players are known and they control the market. It's just very sad to see that lebanon cannot move forward and personally I cannot open up an office in Lebanon and recruit some of the brains.

Programmers in North America don't make enough (well sometimes). We get paid shit in the begining and we suck it up because we want to put the experience on our resume. Some of us get lucky and get good paying jobs others get stuck with 60K a year as Sr. programmers. That doesn't include pension, insurance, taxes etc...

Working for microsoft is not as fun as people might think. My GF was a support engineer for enterprise services at microsoft and it was slavery. There are 2 ex microsoft developers on my team and they also hated how microsoft (canada) operated and they ended up quitting. But I agree getting faster internet will open up a lot of possibilities. Atleast I am one of those people willing to invest in lebanon.

I've delt with a few programmers and designers in leb and let me tell you I was disappointed. They all seem to know everything, and they never admit their mistakes. They don't know when to say "i don't know". But i guess that's the lebanese mentatlity. They don't adhere to deadlines, they can build anything for you in a week, and in the end they never deliver.

enough of my rant. So my only solution is to either pay the 3000K a month for adequate internet, or get 5x256K lines from the various ISPs.

thanks guys.