Tag Archives | mobile operator
touch Lebanon – Text & Talk new ad
3anjad kholsit iyyeim l missed call?
Update:
Here’s the second ad.
More on the data requested by the Information Branch
I just noticed Elnashra has published some classified communications between the interior miniter Marwan Charbel and prime minister Najib Mikati showing the data the Information Branch has requested following the assassination of General Wissam El Hassan.
In all of those documents the Information Branch is requesting the below types of data from the two mobile operators in Lebanon (Alfa and Touch), while there’s no mention of any ISP such as Cyberia, IDM, and the alike.
- List of websites we visit along with all the information we submit to these websites including usernames and passwords. (It’s relatively difficult to obtain these information if HTTPS is enabled)
- Copies of exchanged e-mails and chat sessions.
- Recordings of calls made through VoIP applications.
- List of downloaded apps.
- Call detail records
- SMS records.
So unlike what has been circulating in the past few days, and judging from the content of these communications, the Information Branch is only interested in data logged by mobile operators and not ISPs. In addition, there was no explicit interest in obtaining Facebook credentials as the media was reporting.
Anyway I still find it disturbing to know that mobile operators might not be only keeping track of visited websites, but also of submitted information, e-mails, chat sessions, and even VoIP calls recordings! And it seems like they’re really doing so since the telecommunications minister never claimed those records do not exist and instead is just rejecting the Information Branch’s requests.
P.S: I found it weird that some communications were dated August 18th 2012, and got received by the office of the prime minister on the same day, even though they’re requesting data from the period starting September 13th 2012 and ending November 10th 2012. It’s like asking for data from the future!
touch Lebanon – MyPlan ad
In My New World campaign is a copycat?
I was quite surprised to see the below video shared by @HalaMoubarak today for an ad made by Absolut Vodka back in 2007 and looking very similar to the ads currently running for touch’s new campaign “In My New World“.
To me, In My New World was basically among the two most interesting campaigns this year along with Lebanese Brew’s Try Something Brave, now let’s hope the latter doesn’t turn out to be yet another inspired campaign as well!
Alfa Sunday promotion
Alfa’s latest promotion is more like imposing a ridiculous entrance fee at a discount store. Why should people pay $1/week to benefit from a 40% discount on local calls during Sundays?!
Knowing that a minute costs $0.36 for prepaid users, you’ll be saving $0.144 for each minutes, and therefore you will have to speak a minimum of 7 minutes to cover that $1 you initially have paid ($1/$0.144=6.94), so you won’t start really saving until after you have spoken the 8th minute.
Bravo Alfa! Keep the good promotions coming!
MTC Touch: The art of deception!
A new ad for MTC Touch about their “Friends and Family” service is all over the radio stations now. This new service allows prepaid users to select 2 of their most dialed numbers and call them at 30% less.
That means if you were to fully use the $25 card (which actually gives you $22.73) to call your 2 preferred number, you’ll be able to speak 90 minutes instead of 63 minutes. ($22.73 / ($0.36 * 70%) = 90 minutes)
However, what wasn’t advertised is that this service actually has a cost of $3! And they probably did it that way in order not to allow everyone to benefit from this offer.
Anyway, this means you now can’t subscribe to this service unless you speak a minimum number of minutes with your 2 preferred numbers that are enough to cover the service fee and then start saving money on your remaining calls, so let’s calculate this minimum amount.
Let “T” be that amount, then: $0.36 T * 30% = $3 –> T = 27.7, i.e 28 minutes.
And of course if you were to fully use your card to call your preferred number, the total number of minutes drops to 78 instead of 90. That means the decrease is in fact 23.6% instead of 30%!
Couldn’t they have just advertised a decrease of 20-25% instead of playing smart on their customers?
Update:
Alfa (The second mobile operator in Lebanon) turned out to have launched the same service and is advertising for it as well, with the same fee.
Still, to be fair with the two companies, I have to mention that MTC Touch and Alfa JUST manage the two mobile networks, and to my knowledge do not any control over the rates or the offered services and their fees, it is actually the ministry of telecommunication that controls all of that.