No we don’t have broadband. Available offers in the market today for citizens are all limited to a speed of less than 1Mb/s. “Broadband” should no longer be used loosely to refer to such speeds. Cheaper and Higher bandwidth services of up to 100 Mb/s for citizens and businesses, and up to 1 Gb/s for businesses requesting it, should be made available in Lebanon.

In practical terms, broadband is a connection that allows users to enjoy services only possible with high speed bandwidth such as triple play (TV channel, telephone, and Internet connection at once), videoconferencing, voice over IP, e-commerce, etc. The larger bandwidth is also required for businesses that have many users or network activities such as universities, call centers, news agency headquarters, banks data centers, etc…

The Broadband Manifesto is a formulation of the needs of society for true broadband.

The benefits of broadband are numerous in many ways and several fields. Broadband will change the way we work, think and play. With broadband, education, health, entertainment and tourism will have a new dimension. With broadband, people will eventually be able to reduce their overall cost of living and Internet services start to substitute other services.

Tactical example 1 - Download e-mail with 2Mbytes Attachment:

• Dial Up (56Kbps) = 7 min

• DSL (125k) = 4 min

• DSL (1Mbps) = 17 sec

• BB (100Mbps) = 0.21 sec

Tactical example 2 - Download a 4.7 GB DVD:

• Dial Up (56K) = 13 days

• DSL (4 MBPs) = 3 hours

• BB (100 MBPs) = 9 min

With broadband, Lebanon would have greater business opportunities on a local, regional, and international Level. Fast transfer of information between dispersed geographical areas results in better productivity and additional revenue streams and greater competitiveness.

Visit our forum: If I had Broadband, I would..

Broadband is a true driver for growth. Many studies have revealed direct correlation between broadband penetration and contribution to GDP and/or new jobs creation. Opening of the Lebanese telecommunications market to competition will inject investments in the country and will create new job opportunities to individuals and business opportunities for companies.

Available offers for citizens in the market today are all based on narrowband(<1Mb/s). With Broadband, users will be able to enjoy services only possible with high bandwidth connectivity such as triple play (TV channel, telephone, and Internet connection at once), videoconferencing, voice over IP, e-commerce, call centers, remote medical diagnosis etc.

The government is not refusing to have broadband. However, and for various reasons, the Government has been very slow enacting Telecom Law 431, rolling out required services such as ISDN, DSL, and increasing the international bandwidth.
In a country like Lebanon, where the resources of the Government are limited, it is best to use the market power to its maximum by liberalizing the market and opening it to open and fair competition as soon as possible. Private investment can bring us broadband rapidly while not burdening the national treasury.

Therefore, it would be fair to say that the Government is not against Broadband but some regulations/legislature need to be adjusted. And this (also) is taking some time, when all existing operating parties and vested interests (MOT, Ogero, and DSPs) are taken into consideration.

There is no guarantee! All we can do is to make sure that the broadband stakeholders, all broadband stakeholders, make the government aware of the importance of these services to their businesses and their lives. Best practices about convergence of data and services can be shown from around the world.

The TRA is currently working on spurring broadband and has published the “Liberalization Roadmap” document on its website to describe its plan of action.

The introduction and dissemination of broadband requires major investments in the core network and the payback period is lengthy. The TRA is preparing for a broadband auction including two National Broadband Licenses, the third license being probably provided to Liban Telecom. The auction winners will need to bear the burden of heavy CAPEX and need to be given some incentives such as a protection period of exclusivity to sell wholesale broadband to licensed ISPs and DSPs.

On the other hand, the number of National Broadband Licenses has to be limited in order to avoid having a multitude of providers digging the grounds. However, an open regime will be implemented for access through the “Broadband Access Licenses”.

1 Gb/s is a dream for us now, but it will probably be not enough in 2011. With the fast pace of innovation and technology, it is hard to predict when and what the next technology will be. This is why there is a need for a Broadband Stakeholders Group who will remain vigilant and push for timely government actions as the market evolves and new technologies become available.

As in any competitive market, operators will compete to provide customers with the best available services. These services will be based on ever-new technologies or on existing ones such DSL, wi-fi, wimax, meshed networks, metro Ethernet, etc. So while broadband will be the new standard, the existing technologies will co-exist.

The signature will be listed to show the vision of the private sector and the belief in Broadband with complete transparency and credibility. It will be listed as follow:

· Listed on the website

· Listed in the official document that will be presented to the TRA and the MoT when completed

Fiber vs. wireless was the subject of debate 10 years ago... Today, if we ask whether we need fiber or wireless, the answer is "both". Fiber is mainly used for transport while wireless is used for access. In order to have ubiquitous coverage, we need wireless to cover a geographical area, a city, a university campus, etc.. and fiber to backhaul the aggregate demand to the International Gateway and the Internet. Water distribution can be used as an analogy. There are several methods to access water: faucets, showers, sprinklers. Increasingly larger pipes transport the water back from the building to the water treatment plant.

In order to transport data in fast and efficient Next Generation Networks, we need fiber in the core of the network to transport and backhaul and we need a myriad of access technologies including DSL, Wireless, Wimax, and other new technologies.