Lebanon’s ridiculously small Internet bandwidth is expected to increase by around 3,000% in May – and hopefully bring with it a decrease in the more ridiculous pricing plans.
The 3.84Tbps IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) underwater fiber optic cable will connect to Lebanon and eight other countries stretching from Mumbai, India to Marseilles, France.
Although originally due mid-2009, the cable will be officially up and running in May, as unofficial sources claimed that it was facing some problems in Egypt.
Lebanon will get around 30 Gbps from the cable to add to its current bandwidth of less than 1 Gbps.
The current pricing plans are amongst the highest in the world. It costs ISPs $2,700 per month for two megabits/second in Lebanon versus $446 per month in London and $1,074 in Frankfurt according to a recent World Bank report.
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A 512 kilobit/second connection currently costs $40-$47 per month! As mentioned earlier, ridiculous!
Can we skip March and April? Time machine anyone?
Via NowLebanon
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