The lack of a modern ICT infrastructure in Lebanon has hindered internet capabilities, causing massive inefficiencies for individuals and businesses. Unlike its neighbors, Lebanon still lacks broadband leaving many sectors without the ability to transfer files electronically. This inefficiency increases costs.
By conservative estimations Lebanon’s IT sector grew 12-13% year-on-year, according to Gabriel Deek, president of Professional Computer Association (PCA). He believes that if Lebanon had better ICT infrastructure that growth could reach 20-30%. Cisco, with its partners, has stepped in to help Lebanon get back on track and create a network that in the end will give individuals and businesses cheaper and better access to the internet.
The Partnership for Lebanon began as a crisis intervention by US-based firms Cisco, GHAFARI, Intel, Microsoft and Occidental Petroleum following the 2006 War.
“The Partnership for Lebanon came about following the war in 2006 and it was mainly to see how the private sector in the US could come in and do some sort of assessment and see how it could use its resources to help revive Lebanon,” explained George Akiki, program director for Cisco Systems in the Partnership for Lebanon. “We came in and started collecting money from our employees, CEOs, and friends and gave donations and grants to local NGOs and organizations on the ground, mainly in the south, that were doing restructuring efforts,” he said.
After that, the collaborative effort created a framework that ended up being the Partnership for Lebanon. The initial activities centered on reconstruction efforts mainly in the South, which became the first work stream (response and relief) of five, including connecting communities through online centers, workforce training, job creation and ICT infrastructure. This framework came about in January 2007 and in general comprises socio-economic efforts to put the country on the path of economic growth.
“The main focus is to establish public-private partnerships (PPPs) to work on replicable models and initiatives for whenever we disengage we want the local community to be on a path of sustainability for whatever initiative we started,” Akiki explained.
The Partnership focused on the most pressing need for businesses in Lebanon – ICT infrastructure. “ICT infrastructure is critical and we engaged initially with some tactical moves. The Internet Exchange Forum and the International Internet gateway came about as initiatives– the country had a “small pipe” coming in for internet, in layman’s terms,” said Akiki. The upgrade required higher technology routers, which Cisco donated to Ogero, the state-run fixed-line telecommunications provider and they are currently being implemented as part of a larger project.
The Partnership worked on the Beirut Internet Exchange (Beirut IX) to keep local ISPs in the country. The presence of an Internet Exchange Point (IXP) redirects the traffic into Lebanon instead of sending it on expensive international leased lines. By having traffic move through local bandwidth, end users will connect faster to the local web-server, while lowering the costs for ISPs. “The Internet Exchange Point allows us to save money and time. The Exchange Point is more important when transferring video or other large files – speed becomes even more of an issue.”
The Partnership is also assisting the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) and officials on the national broadband strategy initiative, which focuses on the whole infrastructure of the country with the vision that five or ten years down the road everyone has access to high bandwidth to help businesses compete regionally and globally. “We have gathered experts that we have globally that have done it in other countries and advising on regulatory policy and the business case of what it would take to do this. We have an advisor with an investment banking background who has worked for two or three months to develop a model on the business case. We have also advised on the network architecture for the fiber optic core then later expanded to wireless, DSL, and other technology,” explained Akiki.
The Partnership presented its full report to the TRA in January of this year at a stake holder’s workshop on how to go about bringing broadband to the country and all of the issues surrounding it. The workshop included professional leaders across many sectors, from broadcasting to hospital administrators who presented their views on how broadband would improve their work. The TRA has taken about 80% of the Partnership’s recommendations into their plan for issuing licenses next year, according to Akiki.
“We see our role not as a traditional consultant as someone who simply delivers a report. We are here to see what it would take to put a real program in place and make it happen,” said Akiki. The next step for the Partnership is to get more parties involved at the public, private and NGO levels.
Akiki concluded, “What we are trying to do is set the priority where ICT is at the top. In every funding discussion and priority set in any department it should be at the top.”
