If the recent interview with MTC Tourch boss Claude Bassil which was held by a Lebanese newspaper is to be believed, then the main point that stands out is that the third generation mobile services are all set to modernize Lebanon’s economy.

Users will now be able to take the advantage of more than the 40Mb/s speed of internet broadband, which is the result of the telecommunication operators that are progressing with 3.9G HSPA+ networking. Users will be excited to know that it also provides data rich services through which users can experience video streaming, video calling, mobile TV and many other 3G services.

Alfa, the contestant of MTC Tourch is also planning to launch its 3G services. The company has also completed its video calling test in the last of April. It is expected that the company will launch its services probably by the end of 2011.

According to Mr. Bassil, 80,000 is the lowest figure for 3G subscribers by the end of 2011. He also gave the example of Jordan, where the figure reached around 300,000 in just three months after the introduction of mobile technologies. The 3G subscriber’s figure, which is expected by Mr. Bassil is approx 160,000 by the end of the year.

In order to improve the standard of 3G mobile sector to make it at par with the developed countries, it is essential to enhance the mobile percentage rate in Lebanon. The current mobile rate is 73% which can be increased in a short time through better mobile technology services.

In Lebanon, both the mobile providers are owned by the state. Under the Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications Kuwait’s Zain is the subsidiary, who managed the MTC Touch, and on the other hand Alfa is operated by Egypt’s Orascom.

Montreal’s Real Estate Remains Strong

Formerly Canada’s largest city, Montreal is now also the largest metropolitan area in Quebec. Among the largest French-speaking cities in the world, this metropolitan area boasts of a population of nearly 3,700,000. It is one of the country’s vital financial, commercial, industrial, cultural, and world events hub, with its major industries including software engineering, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, apparel manufacturing, tobacco, transportation, and telecommunication. The Montreal service sector is also one of its assets as they specialize in process, civil, and mechanical engineering, higher education, finance, research and development.

 Strong Canadian Real Estate Market

The country’s economic status is a perfect reflection of the success that the Canadian real estate market is currently enjoying from. The booming situation of the country’s real estate market should not come as a surprise, not with its affluent energy sector, its very dynamic inward migration rate, and its rich city centers. It should also be noted that Canada holds a remarkable 2.9% of tourist demand in the entire world, not to mention the commodities in the country still exceptionally low compared to other countries.  And with this currently occurring, it is definitely an exceptional time to decide and move into one of these promising real estates in the country.

And despite the crunch time that the Third World countries are wallowing from, the country’s real estate association affirms that Canada is on its way to having its best year ever. This is tantamount to saying that even if it falls short, the real estate market hasn’t shown any droop whatsoever yet.

With all the great promises that the current Canadian economy is showing, Montreal is now ranking high in the list of the best cities in Northern America to invest on when it comes to real estate—a perspective that continues to call worldwide investors.

With the every increasing levels of diamond and gold trading in 2010 in Dubai, the 2011 Dubai International Jewelry Week is all set to wow attendees from 10^th to 13^th November at one of the most prestigious industry events in the Middle East.

The 16^th edition of the festival will attract thousands of attendees from Lebanon as well as several other countries such as UK, Turkey, Thailand, Singapore, Korea, Italy, India and Hong Kong. The one of a kind event will showcase luxury collections and jewelry pieces, stylish designs and unique watches at exclusive event prices. The event will be held at DICES, Dubai’s International Convention & Exhibition Center and is to be organized by the World Trade Center of Dubai.

The event this year will feature more than 300 exhibitors, including Beirut jewelry along with 30 other countries presenting beautiful collections of watches and fine jewelry. The National Pavilion that represents Lebanon jewelry will be participating in the event along with several other countries.

The event this year includes several new elements that includes the Pearl Lounge, exclusive VIP access, the premium and luxurious Boutique Boulevard with luxury jewelry from across the world and Diamond World, spread over 1500 square meters and dedicated to the best selection of diamond jewelry and loose diamonds. A key feature in the event will be emerging design talent. Pieces from winners of the third Jewelry Design Awards will also be displayed during the event.

With its reputation as the must attend annual event, the event will also host a number of workshops and seminars that includes a two day seminar that is hosted by Gemology Institute of America. This seminar will discuss the latest market opportunities and trends in the region.

 Lebanon’s Tourism Ministry has warned that beach Lebanon resorts all over the country are raising prices for their food items and entrance fees. The Ministry believed that there is no economic justification for the price increase.

The ministry issued a statement, “The ministry asked pool and beach Lebanon resort owners to submit us a list of the entrance fee rates and prices for beverage and food items that are sold inside the resort, considering the fact that there is no justification for really increasing the rates when compared to the prior year.”

The Tourism Ministry of Lebanon has also asked that the rates of beverages, soda and water should be reasonable since they tend to be the most popular for people that visit beach Lebanon and beach Beirut during the summers.

The warning issued by the ministry comes as the Lebanon beach resorts are increasing their entrance fees. The average fees ranges between 25,000 to 30,000 LL which is 5,000 LL higher than the prices in the last year.

Drinks and food at the Beirut beach resorts are higher in prices than the actual price. a small water bottle can cost as much as 4,000 LL, which is 3,500 LL more than the supermarket price. A hamburger without any price at a Rmelieh resort costs 14,000 LL and local beer costs 7,000 LL. Lebanon’s ministry said that the owners should abide by price system that is set by ministry and that price manipulation can also lead to legal action for violators.

Beirut was recently ranked as the 4^th most expensive place in Middle East and globally it held the 75^th place as per the annual cost of living survey conducted in 214 cities in the world by Mercer Human Resources Consulting. Accommodation in Beirut is definitely the most expensive, as can be seen from the fact that it stood on the 15^th position in the Upper Mid Income Countries that were included in the survey.

The study was conducted to measure the cost of more than 200 items in every location such as cost of accommodation Beirut, household goods, clothing, food, entertainment and transportation. When compared globally, Beirut was at par with Chile’s Santiago and was more expensive than Montreal, Munich and Los Angeles. Santiago tied with Beirut and accommodations Beirut were considered to be costlier than Mauritius’s Port Louis, Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur and Kazakhstan’s Almaty. Accommodations Beirut ranked behind Cuba’s Havana, Colombia’s Bogota and Istanbul.

The only cities in the Arab world that were more expensive when compared to Beirut were Djibouti, Khartoum and Abu Dhabi. The decline of 16 of the Arab cities in rankings can be attributed to the ongoing accommodation cost fall as well as decline in housing costs in the region that is reducing the cost of living substantially for expatriates. In 2011, Djibouti is the costliest city and Tunis is the least expensive. Khartoum along with Djibouti were placed in the top 50 list of the survey.

This survey also included 4 non-Arab cities in the region since Tehran ranked at 130^th, Limassol at 119^th, Istanbul at 70^th and Tel Aviv at 24^th position globally. In Angola, Luanda retains its position as the most expensive in the world while Pakistan’s Karachi is still the least expensive city in the world.

According to the sampling done up to the year 2010, Lebanon almost covers 233 countries worldwide Telecommunications sector and has registered as International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the United Nations which has shown resulted statistics.

With the survey of ITU, in terms of technology like internet, Lebanon has the 10th position in comparison to 17 Middle East as well as countries in North Africa and most prominently Lebanon has the 116th position globally measured by the maximum percentage of the internet users in a country.

It has been assessed that Lebanon has enhanced its internet penetration rate from being 23.68 percent to 31 percent with the comparison of previous year average MENA penetration rate 27.28 percent in terms of usage and globally increased up to 30.16 percent.

With the comparison of highest internet usage piercing rates region like Oman (62.60%), UAE (78%), and Qatar (69%), Lebanon relatively has a very low percentage usage of internet.

If we talk about the mobile subscribers in Lebanon, it has the 116th rank in comparison to the 233 countries out of the total populations. In comparison with the 17 MENA countries, Lebanon has the 14th rank.

According to the sampling, out of the total population of Lebanon, the number of people using mobile subscriptions has far better position and acquires 116th rank with comparison of 233 countries which are included in a sampling. Conventionally, Lebanon comes in 14th rank with comparison of 17 MENA countries. Moreover, in the year 2010, Lebanon increased it’s mobile cellular subscriptions up to 68 per 100 inhabitants with comparison of 56.95 in the year 2009.

However, it remains lesser with respect to the global average which stands at 77.73 for every 100 inhabitants as well as relatively higher regional average at 90.49.

Internet floodgates services are now obtainable in Lebanon, with the help of which it will be quite easy to receive international bandwidth. However, it will still take some time to fully function.
“Customers will not be able to see any of the dynamic results till we will place new pricing,” conveyed by the chairperson of Globalcom Data Services, named Habib Torbey.
The conditions changed when IMEWE-“switch” came into the picture. The capacity of the transfer rate of IMEWE is 3.84 Terabits per second is quite higher than the transfer rate of previous cable in Lebanon.

The issue arises because of the high pricing of internet packages. The high prices are charged from users simply because of their expectation of getting high internet speed.
Imad Tarabay, the CEO of Cedarcom initiated the move to reduce the price of Internet services by charging $100 instead of the standard $300.
According to Boustani, the new pricing will be implemented next month.
Generally, when the new prices are issued, Lebanon previously reported, most consumers are likely to pay what they currently pay for their connections, but receive faster services and connections with possibly no limits.

When consumers purchase an Internet connection with an advertised download speed, they may notice the variation in the speed of their current connections. However, there is no way for them to know the exact speed that their new connection provided, another factor that often bothers users.
The main reason why these strategies were put in place was because Internet service providers had limited bandwidth. Most customers were interested in higher downloading speed.
Since the end of 2010 many other telecommunication companies started using IMEWE cables so as to get more bandwidth.

On the basis of this dispute, the Ogero ministries banned Lebanon from making use of IMEWE for more than half year.

After a long time, the submarine cable has finally been put into action last Monday. The main aim of the cable is to offer internet service providers with the maximum capacity for high speed internet. Antoine Boustany was responsible in making it happen.

The 13,000 KM IMEWE cable running between India and France is near about 3.8 Terabits per second. The implementation of this line in Lebanon had been delayed but was ready to use since 2009. The launching date was Dec. 13, 2010 and was postponed because of issues between Telecoms Ministry, Charbel Nahhas, and OGERO.

According to Boustany, higher access to IMEWE cable was given the green signal only when the Charbel Nahhas wrote a letter to the group to let them know the overall authority about the company’s Internet supply.

Alfa and MTC were the two cellular companies which took steps to launch high speed 3G technologies in the market within seven months.

Imad Tarabay, the CEO of ISP Cadarcom initiated the reduction in price of Internet Services.

It has been calculated that ISPs currently pay approximately $3,000 for the line which cost $100 for the government to supply. According to Tarabay, fast internet facilities are required by users today.

The news was received favorably and with much enthusiasm on Tuesday. The Co-founder of advocacy group, Mark Daou stated that he is pleased with the services but his main focus is on 3G services which will help users get access to increased speed.

According to Samer Karam, it will take one more year to finalize things and put them in motion.

According to Karam, Lebanon is a place where high speed internet services are in demand and it has a direct impact on the economy too.

Nowadays, with the change in demand, the technology is changing day by day. Everyday a latest technology is introduced into market and the best thing is that it’s been appreciated by the customers. When it comes to the high speed internet services, IPTV and 3G mobile networks can never be left behind.

After a survey it was noticed that Nicolas Sehnawi, telecommunication Minister accepted that people are in need of a good development into the internet market in accordance with slackening of internal ability called as India-Middle East –Western Europe and Cadmos.

Mr. Sehnawi also added his views by giving a notice of presenting a draft bill for the reduction in the costing of internet services in Lebanon and the bill is to be presented to the Cabinet in the time frame of next three weeks.

It may be shocking for you but still the reality is that the potential capacity of the 13,000km IMEWE cable that connects the two most famous countries India and France is near about 3.84 TB per second.

Charbel Nahhas, Lebanon’s previous Telecommunications Minister, the broker of the deal, suggested that the capacity of the cable may be tapped so as to enhance the processing of offered 3G networks and broadband mobile services.

If you are waiting for the high speed internet service which could help you to surf heavy websites, then the best option in present time is MTC as it’s expected that it is going to offer 42mbps broadband internet speed to its customers and in a very affordable range. This high speed will surely help out the individuals in accessing IPTV, mobile TV and so on.

Before the end of 2011, Alfa has promised to offer the mobile subscribers with the next generation services in Lebanon. Presently Alfa is busy in launching its 3G services and had successfully processed its video call in the mid of April. The introduction of new submarine cable connection made a great change in to the market of internet services by providing high speed internet facilities in a very affordable range which could help the customers to purchase the plan with ease and comfort.

The Daily Star, a Lebanese Newspaper flashed news that the chief executive (Imad Tarabay) of Internet service provider Cedarcom focused on the service providers who are doing their best in providing high internet services to the users as the government is charging US $3000 for that.

In the present scenario, the situation is like it seems that they are alluring you to purchase the property in Beirut. According to great personality Mr. tarabay “There is plenty of land over here, but no one can go for it”

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