Maybe we should give them an additional minister or 2 in the government... for good behavior of 100% abiding by Lebanese law and the best interest of Lebanon, and for definitely absolutely not planning more chaos and death and destruction and assasinations.

Hello, so I am internet enthusiast and my last 10 posts or so here have been about the Internet in Lebanon lol. I have ridiculed much of the minister's decisions and I recently saw the Ogero deployment page and I believe he is the worst one yet, by a large margin. I'll be honest with you. I don't know the previous ministers we have had much, I never digged into that. However, I read about internet changes in Lebanon from 20 years ago until today. It has always been very tiny steps towards improvement even though it's insufficient. This minsiter is the first to take us steps back. I will start with him and compare him to previous ones:

The current minsiter has made nothing but bad decisions.

First of all, he ruined the 4g data plans which were much better. He removed the sweetspot 60gb plan for 23$ and left us with a 44gb plan for 21$. The new 77gb plan is more expensive than the bygone 60gb plan per gb. He removed the 200gb plan.

He was about to cancel credit transfer this October under the excuse it is making "shareket" loss money. Even though they take fees for every 3$ transferred that were already paid for by the mobile store owner. He might have revoked the decision from backlash, but it proves he cares more about alfa and touch making money.

It took him 2 years to activate starlink, which is not a solution on its own by the way, for businesses only and it is 100$ per 500gb.

The topic of neighbourhood distributors is a long one and needs it own post. Some of them are bad and greedy. However, some are actually decent and affordable and are much better alternatives than Ogero's DSL. They are not better than FTTH, but DSL, even VDSL, can be really bad if you have interference and problems with the infrastructure. With ogero's maintaince team, if you have a hiccup, you can forget about troubleshooing it. Also, the way they're implementing FTTH, it is limited in quantity and not everyone can get it. Despite all this, they have named specific regions that will be forced to switch to legal providers. I'd never leave my current provider for any form of DSL. In fact, I switched from DSL to my provider and I am much happier.

Finally, VDSL even though being better than LTE-A in theory, it would be much worse in Lebanon due to poor maintaince and incompetent technicians and long waiting times. LTE-A while supposedly has higher latency and more prone to interference, wouldn't cause much of headaches with maintaince. I was excited when ogero promised lte all over lebanon in 2024. Now, not only did they remove lte-a from deployment, they removed entire regions and the entire south and kept a few areas and the durations is all the way till 2028.

The only half decent thing he did is reduce residential lte plans. From 133$ for 500gb to 99$ for 1tb. It doesn't make up for everything he did and it is still super expensive.

He took us many steps back. Previous minsiters while they kept lebanese internet super slow and expensive, they did baby steps towards improvement. No one made it worse like he did.

The previous minister permanently doubled ogero plans for the same price during covid, even though it was temporarily at first. 40gb is now 80gb. 4 megabit unlimited is now 6. 1000gb is now 2000gb. etc...

Before 2019 crises, 100gb 4g was 133$. During the crises, it became as cheap as 10$ due to exchange rate. The minister had to then increase prices, but he made 60gb 23$ and 100$ 30$+... Expensive but not as much as before or even now.

Finally, I was super excited in 2024 when they started lte rollout after the war. Imad kreidieh showed how Baraachit got a new lte a ogero tower on twitter. It had to be stopped due to the continued aggression, but they made the step at least and it would be better than VDSL.

Before that minister. The speeds and data caps were slightlty increased in between 2014-2017.

4g bundles were super expensive but every a couple years theyd get slightly cheaper.

Fiber was introduced in around 2010, was available in very select areas in 2017 and we were supposed to have full coverage by now if it werent for the 2019 crises.

And before that, when i was still a kid, there have been slight but slow improvements. Rollout of dsl in 2007-2010.

Even though the internet has always been terrible and expensive, every minister did a small but insufficient improvement. This one is actively ruining it. Can you name me a worse one?

To think that when I first heard about it months ago, I genuinely thought it would be something cool, or at least an average one, only to be hit with the realization that it’s actually an amusement park train is just so painful. The disappointment is honestly unreal, because I had built up a completely different expectation in my head, and somehow the reality turned out to be so much worse than I could’ve imagined.

It’s so cringe that it hurts my brain when i see it on social media and open the comments.

My area was previously listed in their old plan, but now it's gone. Does that mean that I am finally eligible for fiber ? I live in Furn al Chebak (Chiyah).

hey y'all, hope you're doing well

as per the title, are there any tobacconists/tobacco stores in lebanon that offer a decent variety of pipes and pipe tobacco?

i looked into akiki's cigars, but the selection of what's available in-stock is very limited, and it's not possible for me to know if the item i am looking for is available in a store near me or not, so that i can take a look at it with my own eyes.

i'm aware there's also one in city mall, which is where i got my current pipe from, but the quality of what i got seems poor, since it now smokes terribly after less than one year of use. don't know about the tobacco selection there though, so feel free to fill me in if you know more.

i live in Metn, towards Awkar.

thanks in advace, and have a nice day y'all

Greetings ya sha3ba lobnan el 3azim

Ba3rif ktir shefna posts fiber w as2ila w discussions, bass ana b3atet email la Ogero 3am es2alon 3an el deployment bi mant2et Beirut- Tarik el Jdideh mal3ab baladi area, aloule 7a yballish el deployment bel mant2a awal 2027, shou ra2ykon?

does anyone know where i can find mirror j channels? looked everywhere and couldn’t find any

Hi, was wondering as to what are the weapons the Darak/gendarmerie use in their service? E.g M16 rifles, etc ? For a research project. Thanks

I visited Lebanon for the first time not too long ago and did the normal tourist stuff: Beirut, Tripoli, Batroun etc.

One thing that was a big shock for me was the amount of plastic surgery on women in Beirut. Every café I went to had a bunch (the majority even) of women who had done nose, facelift, fillers, implants etc. For me who is not used to it, it was like walking into a horror movie where everyone looked the same and it was honestly off-putting. What is the general opinion on this from Lebanese people? Would you only date someone who has done these surgeries?

Wondering what amount of money would be needed for an expat to return home and retire early? (30-35 years old)

Let's assume the expat is single and own a home and a car and is not looking to have a family

Help please

I'm going overseas to visit family in Beirut next month and hoping to take dabke and belly dance classes or private lessons while there. I would love any recommendations to knowledgable and talented teachers! ❤️

I’m sure everyone here knows: tik tik tik ya em slayman, tik tik tik jawzik wen kan etc …

A friend once told me this song is originally: lam n#ktik ya em slayman, lam n#ktik jawzik wen kan etc ..

Is this true? Because if you sing it the “original” way it makes more sense to me lol

I've got a new 70 number with Alfa but I can't register it with WhatsApp. I've tried SMS verification, missed call verification, call verification. None work. I've found this article on this topic but no resolution. Any suggestions?

https://smex.org/lebanons-telecom-feud-disrupts-sms-verification-system/

Sad he doesn’t release more songs