Categories
Lebanon World

Egypt gets 2,250 Megawatts for 300 million $, Lebanon pays 1.2 Billion $ for 700 Megawatts

A friend of mine shared this link on Facebook, can anyone explain the huge price difference?

CAIRO, Sep 20, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — –GE-Led Consortium Wins Expansions at Giza North and Banha Power Plants, Projects Will Add 2,250 Megawatts

–These Contracts Constitute the Largest Power Generation Order Between GE and Egypt

GE has signed contracts totaling US$300 million to supply six gas turbines and associated services to the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company for two new combined-cycle power plants near Cairo that will support Egypt’s rapidly growing energy needs.

Source

Categories
3G Cell Phones Internet Lebanon

My first day using Alfa 3G in Lebanon

Today I started using the 3G service I got from Alfa, I won’t make a judgement on it yet since I was very busy and I barely managed to use it but the speeds were a little slow when I did test them. I did not use it for browsing yet and the only app I used was whatsapp so I didn’t see any improvement in this area.

I contacted customer support via mail today and they called me back, they were very helpful and I’ll make a post about that on another day.

Here’s a small list of results I got from the speedtests (using speedtest.net app for android)

  • Sin El Fil, 08h26, Down 119 kbps, Up 336 kbps, ping 131 ms
  • Sin El Fil, 09h15, Down 41kbps, Up 370 kbps, ping 211 ms
  • Sin El Fil, 09h15, Down 609kbps, Up 382 kbps, ping 211 ms
  • Naccache, 20h24, Down 311 kbps, Up 166 kbps, ping 329 ms

Reception in Sin El Fil is a little bad indoor (1-2 over 5) and good outside (3-5 over 5) but I managed to make good quality phone calls indoors and outdoors. In Naccache it’s good with a full reception outdoors and an indoor reception similar to the one I got outdoors in Sin El Fil.

I am currently using the connection to download app updates on my phone and they are downloading faster then usual so that’s a good sign! I got to go watch the latest episodes of How I met your mother and 2 and a half man now but I promise you I’ll keep updating you about the connection as I test it!

Categories
3G Cell Phones Internet Lebanon

Alfa 3G coverage map and other info

Here’s a scan of the flyer I got with my Alfa 3G line. In the second page you can see the different regions in Lebanon that will be covered by 3G in the testing phase.

Categories
Cell Phones Internet Lebanon

I got an Alfa 3G SIM card!

Today I attended the SMW Beirut event at the Mar Roukoz campus of USJ. During the event the minister of telecommunication launched the 3G service in Lebanon on a limited bases just for testing. At the end of the conference a draw was made to select 25 students from each mobile operator to test the service and I got lucky and received a SIM card from Alfa!. In total 4000 users will test it, 25% will be students and the others will be randomly selected from the population.

So for the next month I will be testing 3G in Lebanon and updating you guys here and on Twitter (@eliedh).

I have a 3GB data cap on the service and I according to the flyer I should expect speeds up to 21.1 Mbps.

The person distributing the SIM cards at the end of the conference told us that the 3G will start working tomorrow. I already placed the SIM card in an HTC Mozart phone (running windows phone 7). I got a 3G signal and I was able to call it from my other line but the internet did not work. I’ll try it later tonight on an HTC Hero (running android).

During this month I’ll try to test the connection on as many devices as I can and use as many services as I can.

Here’s a list of the devices I plan to test on (I have the devices marked in bold and can get quick access to the others):

  • HTC Hero
  • HTC Mozart
  • Nokia N8
  • Nokia C7
  • iPhone 3GS
  • iPhone 4
  • iPad 3G
  • LG Arena
  • LG GD900 Crystal
  • Sony Ericsson Z610
  • Nokia E72
  • Samsung Ace
  • Samsung Galaxy S
  • Samsung Galaxy S2
  • Samsung Wave

Note that I did not check if all the devices support the technology used by Alfa so I’ll check before testing each one. I’ll also try to use the tethering option on devices that support it. In addition to that I might get a USB dongle to test it on my Macbook pro and on my windows laptop.

The services I use on a daily basis on my mobile are the following: Whatsapp, Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook. During the testing period I’ll try to stream some videos to the mobile phones and perform a speed/ping test on every device/region. If I get the chance I will also try to place a Video call (but during the conference I heard that it does not work yet so I’m not sure about it).

I hope the service works correctly and that we can finally have decent internet in Lebanon, I’ll make sure to inform Alfa about any problem I might encounter since this is a testing period and hopefully 3G will be available to everyone soon.

If you have any suggestions or questions please share them in the comments.

Categories
Lebanon Music

Lady Gaga new album banned in Lebanon

According to lebanonfiles.com Lebanese authorities banned the new lady gaga album in Lebanon “because it harms Christianity”. That will surely help because you know everyone buys music legally on CDs in Lebanon…

Categories
Lebanon

Lebanese flag

image

Lebanese flag in Sin El Fil

(posted from cell phone)

Categories
Funny Lebanon

Windows XP screensaver on Jal El Dib ad

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image

This morning while going to work I noticed that the ad on the Jal el dib highway was displaying the windows xp screen saver instead of ads!
I guess someone is getting fired for not moving the mouse :p

Posted from my cell.

Categories
Internet Lebanon

Broadband finally arriving to Lebanon?

I just read this article on Agenda Culturel (french – click here for the english translation).

Apparently they are going to start laying the fiber optics cable required to deliver fast broadband to Lebanese internet users. The article says we should receive speeds of 15Mbps soon.

With all the political problems and the fact that there is no government to approve the future steps of the plan I doubt this will happen, but we can only hope!

Categories
Funny Lebanon

Money Laundry

There’s a new laundry that opened on the way to my house. With the new sign I am not sure what kind of laundry they do!

Categories
Internet Lebanon

Lebanese Parliament Scheduled to Vote on Law that Could Curb Online Freedom

Draft of the Law, Facebook page against the law, More info about the Law, Naharnet Article.