Imad Kreidieh, the new director general of Ogero, held a live Q&A on Facebook yesterday to discuss the company’s plans to improve the Internet in Lebanon. Kreidieh recently took the lead of Ogero, Lebanon’s national telecom operator. Despite only hold the position for 8 weeks, he is already working magic and gaining popularity among the Lebanese people. In his Live Q&A last night – which he held in both English and Lebanese – he made a few major announcements and updated us on the work they are doing. Among the announcements, they plan on introducing new plans with faster Internet, cheaper plans and larger quotas. This could be as soon as 2-3 weeks from now. They are waiting for the green light from the Ministry of Telecommunications. Plans with unlimited internet may be offered again by Ogero. He did note that the internet won’t be able to reach super fast speeds until the infrastructure is changed. The implementation could start as soon as this month with major improvements as of this Fall. Now, if you wanted to switch your Internet service provider, you are required to wait one month. However, this is most likely going to be changed by the Ministry of Telecommunications. He also announced that they will be opening the maximum available internet speeds uncapped during 3 days in Beirut:
- April 9, 2017
- April 11, 2017
- April 13, 2017
This test will touch on 130,000 subscribers in Beirut alone. The specific regions within Beirut are:
- April 9: Badaro, Mazra3a, Mrayjeh, Elissar, Jdeideh, Hazmieh, Ras Beirut, and Riyad el Solh
- April 11: Furn el Chebbek, Bir Hassan, Hadath, 3am rousiye, Adlieh, Hamra, Choueifat, and Nahr.
- April 13: Dawra, Sin El Fil, Mina el Hosn, Ras el Nab3, Chiyah, Achrafieh, and Dekwaneh.
For other regions in Lebanon, it will be on April 15th, 2017. Then every Sunday until the exercise is complete. This will happen from 8 am to 8 pm and they are insisting on your feedback. You can email them at thepeople@
ogero.gov.lb – an email created just for this operation. You can also contact them through Twitter and Facebook.
Kreidieh has promised regular communication and transparency moving forward. He plans on keeping us up to date with latest developments as well as the challenges they face. He also announced the creation of an incubator to support startups by giving them the tools and equipment they need. He admitted that he “tried the customer service” personally and that it was “TERRIBLE.” But they plan on working on it. When someone asked him how they could “apply to work at Ogero without the need of wasta (connection)”, he told her to come by his office and he will personally accept her CV. This is very encouraging and a perfect example of how with the motivated (business) leaders, we can create change in the country! Here at The961, we are constantly looking for ways to make our site load faster for our audience in Lebanon since we are considering the slow internet load times. This move by Ogero is quite encouraging!
