Letter to Lebanese Acting Minister of Telecom Charbel Nahhas

Dear Minister Nahhas,

I had the unfortunate displeasure of attending your so-called "open discussion" last week at AUB.which was hosted by the Youth Shadow Government  I have to begin that the whole lecture (which cannot even be considered an "open" discussion because there was nothing open about it) was very pointless and was not informative at all about the telecom situation in Lebanon. What it was though is extremely depressing.

Your excellency explained that decreasing the costs of telecommunications will not solve any problems. You also said that equalizing chances between countries will not be achieved if telecommunications became better.

I am sorry to tell you that this is a pathetic excuse not to improve the communications sector in Lebanon. Your speculations that such improvements are not necessarily advantageous to the Lebanese society are invalid. I don't know if you realize how important the internet and fast communication is for the Lebanese youth. Having the worst internet in the world (which you claim is a conspiracy theory) but still having among the highest penetration of users means that with a better service, the Lebanese society can flourish in the online community. While agriculture is declining and manufacturing is inexistent in Lebanon, we rely on the services sector and this will have a huge impact on the economy and income.

What I found to be more ridiculous is your explanation of why Voice over IP (VoIP) is blocked. In short, the reason why its blocked is because it gives a free/low-cost service to the Lebanese community that the government is offering for ridiculously high costs. As you said, if VoIP was permitted, the government would lose $100 million yearly. This only shows that you only care about the government, and not the citizens. I don't care about the money the government is making by blocking free services from the public, its not like they are going for good use anyway.

Your excellency, all you did in your lecture is create alibis for the bad internet service that we have. Does it really seem logical for anyone not to have fast internet because it might be used by Israeli spies in Lebanon, or because there is a chance of monopolization of the internet services? Really?

Mr. Minister, I think you should come up with better excuses for why your ministry hasn't yet improved the telecommunication sector in Lebanon, just for the sake of the existing Lebanese online community.