Style over substance

  Network companies around the globe have been reporting delays and difficulties in data transmission, due to the exponential growth of number of smartphone users. Lebanon is no stranger to the trend, in a country where outdated telecom networks have become a cause célèbre and BlackBerry users, trendsetters. Last December, British mobile phone operator O2 apologized for service trouble as some customers were periodically unable to make and receive calls or transmit data because of pressure on the network from smartphones. In Lebanon Ayoub Merhi, manager of the BlackBerry store in downtown Beirut, acknowledged that when BlackBerry was introduced in 2009, users had initially faced similar network problems. These problems could be partially blamed on increased use of applications by customers with smartphones, which repeatedly pull data off the Internet at short intervals. “Network services have certainly improved since last year, as mobile phone [companies] beefed up the network by