Tag Archives: Alfa

4G In Lebanon? Apparently Yes.

A very good friend recently told me that her sister was getting a 4G signal on her phone in Batroun. While I still don’t have 3G on Alfa, it looks like MTC are moving on to the next generation already. I would assume Batroun is not their top priority and other regions have this as well.

I find it interesting that it hasn’t been advertised anywhere yet. I remember reading that LTE and 4G would be available in Lebanon starting summer 2012. We all thought they were kidding back then. While I still don’t think it will happen by then, it looks like 4G in Lebanon is closer than we think.

I guess we should’ve gotten those 4G LTE iPads.

Syrian Jamming of Lebanese Phone Networks?

This is not the first time this happens with me. I called Alfa about it before and they blamed my phone. So now it happened with my iPhone 4S (it previously happened with my iPhone 4) the moment I reached home in the North. A telecom engineer told me it couldn’t be my phone and this is illegal.

I have no idea how something like this is possible. I’m well off the Syrian-Lebanese border so how can I get Syriatel reception all the way on the coast?

It also sticks around for a good 30 minutes unless you force your phone to switch carriers. That also doesn’t always work.

The interesting thing is that if I switch simcards to the Syrian MTN one I got when I visited, it doesn’t work. It’s only with Alfa. Anyone with MTC having this as well? And can anyone explain how such a thing is possible?

Lebanon’s Alfa Introduces U-Chat

I was driving yesterday when I heard an ad on the radio announcing a new type of prepaid plan from Alfa called U-chat. When I got home, I researched about it further and found the offer to be very interesting and unLebanese-like.

U-chat is a new recharge system, next to regular prepaid and Waffer, that’s closer to a plan than a simple credit recharge. Two varieties exist: $9 and $17.5.

You can switch your prepaid line to U-chat and convert U-chat back to prepaid free of charge. The recharges for regular prepaid, not Waffer, apply to U-chat. You can also have someone send you credit if you are low on it.

The following are the plans:

For $9:

For $17.5:

And out-of-plan rates:

 

The 10 or 20 minutes for weekdays are for the whole month. If you finish those 10 or 20 minutes before the month is up, you’re charged 60 cents per minute even if the 20 or 40 minutes for the weekend are not done.

I think the “Out of Plan” charges are overpriced, which makes this the main drawback of the plan, when it comes to minutes and extra MB consumption.

The plans in themselves are interesting considering we’ve never had a texting, calling and data bundle in Lebanon before.  This a good step. But seeing as such plans are apparently not impossible, shouldn’t there be a bigger variety especially for users who might need more than 250MB per month and more than 60 minutes?

Alfa’s 3G Coverage

More than 6 months after the introduction of 3G in Lebanon, and more than a month after the supposed deadline given to have most of Lebanon covered, Alfa still has a long way to go.

No, I’m not saying the job they did so far is bad. But when their online map shows that they’ve already covered regions with 3G while it’s clearly not the case, then yes we should be allowed to speak up, especially when upon telling them of the matter they reply that the online map isn’t very accurate and that they have a more accurate one in their headquarters.

That online map has changed a couple of times since it first went online. At first, it had a narrow strip of regions already covered with a bigger strip of regions that will be covered by December 2011 and then March 2012. Then the map changed to have that initial strip made even bigger, more coverage I suppose. Hurray? Guess again.

Today, the map shows that all Lebanon should be covered with some already covered in December and the rest by March 2012. We’re already in May and this is definitely not the case.

Living near the coastal areas of Batroun, my region was supposedly covered from the getgo with 3G. And that was far from reality. Not only did Batroun city recently (in the last month or so) get 3G, my hometown, which is covered according to their map, barely gets Edge. GPRS is our connection of “choice.” And neither are stable enough to offer proper connectivity, the phone keeps jumping between them both.

Now, while my problem with all of this is their very wrong map, which has remained wrong despite many of us telling them it is, it’s not the only thing to note. Yesterday, I found out that MTC had 3G coverage in my hometown. They also had coverage in Batroun from the start, even though they didn’t advertise it as aggressively as Alfa did.

Another region which apparently has 3G according to their map is the Balamand region. While I used to get 3G sporadically there, it is still very far from being stable enough from being used. Just yesterday, while standing outside the faculty of medicine, I got 3G. I walked ten meters to the university’s main gate and the phone switched back to Edge, I tried to force it back to 3G – nope, wouldn’t work.

That region has had very intermittent coverage – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Those with MTC have coverage all the time, both as data and simple cellular connection. Alfa’s regular reception in that region, as well as my hometown, is abysmal. You can barely make a regular phone call even if your life depended on it.

So I ask the following: when will Alfa’s engineers take notice of this? When will they get the minimum coverage required from them up to par? When will their shameless marketing stop? And when will their customer service department show the map of their true 3G coverage?

Alfa and MTC Introduce New Blackberry Services: Cheaper and Less Features

After minister of telecommunications Nicolas Sehnaoui announced on Twitter that he will be making new announcements on April 30th, I was interested in what he was going to say.

The news is for Blackberry users, however decreasing they may be. No, the service has not been made cheaper as people are saying. No, you don’t simply pay $8 for the 200MB you used to pay $24 for. Instead of having one blackberry service now, called Blackberry Internet Service (BIS), Alfa and MTC  have introduced two other plans: Blackberry social ($8 for 200MB) and BlackBerry complete ($12 for 200MB). The original BIS plan has been upgraded to $24 for 500MB.

You can see all the details here:

For BlackBerry Social, you can’t add other chatting services nor can you activate email. For BlackBerry complete you get to activate one email account.

I really don’t get the point behind this. They want new users? What’s the purpose of the 5 other mobile data plans that both carriers have, then?

1) Why is the 500MB for BlackBerry still more expensive than the 500MB for regular mobile data?

2) Why introduce new plans when there are room for improvements in the original one to begin with? For most BlackBerry users, 200MB per month is more than enough (their phones are not exactly data heavy). Why not cut the price of the original plan, which has way more functionality?

As Twitter user UxSoup said, the more suitable name for this would be BS Social.

In other news, I’m still waiting on the unlimited internet at off-peak hours.