03 November 2011

BEIRUT: Lebanese customers on the Mtc touch network are now able to access long-awaited 3G services, the telecom operator announced Wednesday, one week after rival company Alfa launched the service.

Over 10,000 subscribers were already connected to high speed Internet as of Tuesday, including 8,000 subscribers who migrated from 2G to 3G+ and an additional 2,500 new users who subscribed within one day of its activation, Mtc touch chief commercial officer Nadim Khater said.

Mtc Touch’s geographic coverage will be confined during the first few months to Greater Beirut and the coastal line stretching north and south of the capital, Khater said in a news conference at the Phoenicia hotel in Beirut.

Within two to three months, the coverage is to be extended to cover most Lebanese territories, he added, explaining that the coverage of less populated areas would take place faster than the first phase.

Customers will have access to a series of packages that they can subscribe to, with options including a $10 offer for a 100 MB cap, $19 for a 500 MB cap, $32 for a 1GB cap, $79 for a 3GB cap and $99 for a 5GB cap. Additional MBs will cost $0.1, $0.08, $0.07, $0.07 and $0.06 for each respective package.

Mtc Touch prepaid customers will also have the option of using the 3G network without a subscription at a cost of $0.5 per MB download through a pay-as-you-go scheme.

3G, the third generation of mobile phone technology, allows users with 3G-enabled devices like smartphones access to a network to download information from the Internet at high speeds, opening myriad services previously unavailable to consumers.

One widely sought after service, video calls, will be available for a charge of $0.4 per minute. But a service trial conducted by Mtc Touch earlier this month showed that 92 percent of those who participated in the poll didn’t use video calls.

However, Khater attributed the lack of use of video calls among trial participants to the fact that of the 2,000 who took part, very few actually knew each other and were therefore unlikely to call each other.

Though the Lebanese welcomed the launch of the 3G+ service, many have complained about the high pricing of plans relative to the data cap provided.

However, Telecommunications Minister Nicholas Sehnaoui, who sponsored the launching, told reporters that the price packages shouldn’t be compared to current prices in the region where the service has been available for a while.

“The prices should rather be compared to prices that have been offered in the region when those countries launched the service,” Sehnaoui said.

He added that another reason behind the relatively high cost was the size of the Lebanese market which is small when compared to other countries.

The telecoms minister said prices should decrease gradually, adding that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority was due to announce Friday a study conducted to explain the rates.

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.