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Mobile Postpaid Users Soon To Be Deprived of Their Monthly 60 Free Minutes

By on April 11, 2019 in Telecom

Minister of Telecommunication Mohamed Choucair announced today that he is considering cancelling the 60 free minutes of local talk-time that postpaid subscriber get every month as part of setting the government budget for 2019.

Minister Choucair made that suggestion based on his own assumption that postpaid subscriber are wealthy people who can afford to pay additional fees on their bills. I’m not making that up as he really explained it to LBCI’s reporter..! Noting that the additional money generated from that move should make up for the decrease in revenue that Touch and Alfa have reported for the year 2018 (a decrease of $200 million from 2017).

Business people usually have a million ways to improve their offerings and their revenues at the same time and I’m sure increasing prices would never be on top of their list. This however doesn’t seem to be the case for Mohamed Choucair who did absolutely nothing for the telecom sector since he was appointed, and this doesn’t only show his lack of experience in the field, but also how desperate is the government to secure additional funds for the upcoming budget which is yet an additional proof of how bad is our monetary situation.

At a time where countries around us are making a progress everyday in the telecom field, we specialize in appointing people who excel at pulling us backwards. Ya3tina l 3afyeh.

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Dual SIM Phones and Mandatory IMEI Registration in Lebanon

By on September 13, 2018 in Telecom

Earlier this month the ministry of telecommunication brought back the mandatory IMEI registration as an attempt to keep dealers from smuggling mobile phones into the country without paying any customs duty. In principle, buyers are not required to do anything when buying a legal phone from the local market, but they will of course have to pay the due tax when getting a phone from abroad.

Before this new mechanism became effective, the ministry asked people to insert a SIM card in their old devices in order for the cellular networks to recognize them as “legal” devices in the future. I imagine the majority did it, but some people who use dual SIM phone might have missed to insert a card into their second SIM slot (I know I did!) since each slot has a different IMEI number that should be registered with one of the available networks.

My friend who uses a supposedly legal Sony XZ1 recently tried using a second line in his second SIM slot and received the below SMS from MoT.

Funnily enough, when he contacted 111 to ask about the issue they literally answered “el SIM mish mjamrak” instead of explaining to him that he should have inserted a card into that second slot prior to the first of September. The guy also went to LibanPost to inquire about the fees he should pay in order for his phone to work properly and they had absolutely no idea what should be done in his case!

So in brief, in case you have a dual SIM phone and also forgot about that second slot you have in you device, then you should know it will only function for 90 days when you need it.

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Waiting for Godot

By on December 16, 2011 in Lebanon

The government always succeeds to leave us on our tiptoes waiting for the “next big thing” to solve the problems with our cellular networks.

It started with the poor service following the expansion two years ago, then the absence of 3G, and now the whole mess they got themselves into after introducing 3G! Thus the need for $110 million now to enhance the two networks and eventually put an end to the problems in 8 months.

“I am happy to announce to the Lebanese that the National Quality of Services for the cellular networks will put an end to the poor mobile services. This plan will take eight months to be completed. But the Lebanese will feel the positive results in two to three months. Today I have signed the appropriate investment decision which will allow the two cellular companies, Mtc Touch and Alfa, to start work on this big project,” the minister said. Source

I wonder what are we going to anticipate next!

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