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Communications in Lebanon

This article concerns the systems of communication in Lebanon. Lebanon possesses a number of systems of telecommunication, some of which are currently being reconstructed following damage during the civil war. The country code and top-level domain for Lebanon is "LB".

Telephone

There are 700,000 telephone main lines, and 600,000 mobile telephones in use in Lebanon. The telephone system experienced severe damage during the civil war, but was completetly rebuilt and revamped. The systems that provide the infrastructure for the telephone network are, domestically, microwave radio relay stations and cables, and internationally, two Intelsat satellite-earth stations, a coaxial cable, and microwave radio relay station to Syria and three submarine coaxial cables.

Free Radio and TV Broadcasting in Lebanon

Lebanon possesses one AM radio broadcast station, and 32 FM radio broadcast stations. As of 2005, there are 28 privately owned FM radio stations. One FM station, which shifts between French, English, and Armenian, and the sole AM radio station, which broadcasts solely in Arabic, are owned by the state-owned Radio Lebanon, which is responsible to the Ministry of Information. Radio Lebanon also relays Radio France International at 13:00 (UTC) daily. Among private broadcasters are the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation(LBCI), National Broadcasting Network, Radio One, and the Voice of Tomorrow. There are 2.85 million radios is Lebanon. Furthermore, Lebanon has two digital cable television companies, Cable Vision and echonet.

There are 28 television broadcast stations in Lebanon, although the application of the Audiovisual law has caused the closure of a number of TV stations. The PAL television standard is used in Lebanon. Except for the stated-owned Télé-Liban, most broadcasters run commercials and are privately owned. Some of the most important television networks are the LBC, New TV, Future TV, Orange TV (OTV), Al-Manar and NBN. There are 1.18 million televisions in Lebanon.

Paid Radio and TV in Lebanon

There are two cable TV companies in Lebanon: Cable Vision

and Echo Net.

Different Internet Services in Lebanon

Internet services are administered in Lebanon by the Ministry of Telecommunication. Lebanon provides three types of services: dialup services, wireless Internet service and ADSL.

A) 56 K dialup:
Dialup services cost around $7 a month but users have to pay for the cost of phone communication.

B) ADSL Services:
ADSL was offered for the first time in April 2007 and there are currently (as of October 2007) 14,000 subscribers. The ADSL network is still under development in some cities or rural areas. The prices for ADSL varies depending on the DSP but typically cost from $19/month (128 kpbs) to 70$/month (1 Mbit/s). Ogero also gives HDSL: a 2.3 Mbit/s account for the download and upload traffic with an 8 GB/month limitation for 200$/month. As Listed on The IDM Website, 90% of Lebanon will be able to use ADSL by the End of 2008. There are current unlimited plans for ADSL but only on low accounts such as 128 kbit/s for 26$/month and 256 kbit/s for 36$/month.

C) Wirless Internet:
Wireless Internet services were offered for the first time in 2006 and cost around $45/month. Wireless high-speed internet is portable; users can connect anytime anywhere, in the office, on the mountain or by the sea and it provides very high speed with a download rate between 512 kbit/s and 1 Mbit/s depending on the chosen account.

Point-to-Point Leased Line fees include:

A one time connection fee based on Bit Rate- calculated per Leased Line- (and depending on the Leased Line Bit Rate).
A recurring monthly fee with a fixed component which is based on Bit Rate, and a variable component based on Bit Rate and distance.

The following ISPs/DSPs exist in Lebanon:

IDM, Blink (OGERO), Cyberia, FastNET, NewCOM Fiberlink, Sodetel, Terranet, Trinec (ASP), Netlink, Farah Net, Virtual ISP, Lebanon OnLine, WISE Moscanet