Telecommunications in Lebanon has come to embody the fault line along which Lebanese business and government split. While the people who use the communications networks try to progress and join the information age, the sector has lain dormant for years because of both publicly-owned, ineffective infrastructure, and political scuffles over who should control Lebanon’s most profitable public service. In 2011 the plates on either side of this fault shifted, sending economic shockwaves, both positive and negative, throughout the economy. It all started in January when the then-caretaker Telecommunications Minister Charbel Nahas announced that third generation mobile Internet (3G) would be introduced to the country. 3G technology is a means of incorporating high-speed Internet with mobile devices such as smartphones or using a ‘dongle’ to enable users to access the service on their computers the way they currently use other wireless Internet products, such as the pervasive Mobi and Wise Box.
