Internet unchained

ENAR

It could have happened years ago. In July 2011 — after a nearly seven-month delay — Lebanon ‘lit up’ a submarine fiber optic cable that brought the county much-needed internet capacity. Before the India-Middle East-Western Europe (IMEWE) cable went live, the internet came to Lebanon in a trickle. After, it was supposed to be a flood — a promise that will come closer to realization on July 1. Theoretically, the IMEWE should have benefited end users in two ways: significantly faster internet speeds and much higher capacity, reflected in monthly download limits. Neither benefit really materialized. Download speeds in most of 2011 were around 500 kilobits per second, according to US-based Ookla, which monitors global internet speeds. Throughout most of that year, Lebanon was either dead last or among the countries with the slowest global download speeds. With IMEWE operating, the speed began to pick up. Today, Lebanon ranks 175 out of