Virtual lights against a tide of darkness

If owning Lebanon’s digital future was the objective of a massively multiplayer online game, the MMO design could easily be for a win-lose contest where one winner could walk away with some virtual trophy and be rewarded some non-fungible token (NFT) or an amount in stablecoin. But the reality of Lebanese telecommunications is not a political game, multiplayer or otherwise – despite it having appeared as such over the years. The impact of telecommunications and the wider ICT sector on the real economy and the well-being of society is such that it is paramount to change the telecom game from a lose-lose past into a win-win future.    With many contradictory elements and an ironic political twist at the end of its long first round, the economic and social telecommunications narrative meanders madly from the activation of mobile telephony as a phenomenally productive infrastructure innovation and landmark for the attraction