I have tried, with all of you. When you were friends and when you were enemies, when you were nice and when you were bad, in every occasion I have tried because I wanted to see what you will end up doing to my city, but unfortunately all you did was to screw this wonderful Mediterranean city more and more.

Maybe I am exaggerating because I love Jounieh more than you do, maybe because I want it to be the most perfect town, but every now and then you prove more and more that you never deserved my last vote for you.

You have no more attractive words to put on your billboard campaign that you ended up bringing Virgin Mary to be part of it, how low things can go to get a simple vote. While the others are turning the page for a new start that they were supposed to make happen long time ago.

Surely things will be different for me this Sunday, because both of you are BIG LIARS!

click for large size picture

Source Maya Zankoul and Qifanabki

But the dream was soon demolished when MTC Touch announced its plan price which was way illogical in a country where Lebanese thought they are by far leading the technology knowledge in this part of the world.
The subscription cost is US$45/month including 20 MB of consumption (for local usage only). Extra usage is charged US$1/MB.

Compared to the service offered by Etisalat in the UAE (United Arab Emirates), you would pay in Dubai AED185 (US$50) for local unlimited data and AED295 (US$80) for unlimited local and international usage which compared to the lebanese plan, would let the consumer say, DUH am i screwed in my own country? Just for a real life example, I have a French friend living in Lebanon, he is simply using the Blackberry service from the UAE, and I am sure lots of other people are doing the same.

I have never been a Blackberry user, but I think that all Blackberry phones are not wifi enabled, which forces you to stay within the boundaries of the 20MB data you have per month, which is not really sufficient for a heavy user, even on just a simple work email account, in case we drop net browsing. (i read somewhere that Blackberry will be launching a wifi enabled phone in 2009)

On the other hand, I am an MTC Touch client and I use their GPRS service which cost me US$20/month for 30MB of data, which I believe is fair and enough if used properly, larger packages are also available.

It is more convenient using such plan on a smart phone because it gives you more flexibility specially if you need to push more than 1 email address, I guess on Blackberry you are limited to only 1 email address, please correct me if I am wrong.

Lebanon was considered for many years before the civil war that started in 1975 and ended in 1990, as Switzerland of the Middle East, but I am not sure if this myth is still living specially that technologically we were left behind for quite a long time. Lately Lebanese consumers had a slight hope when the government lowered the mobile calling rates, for the first time since cell phones services were launched around 1995, consumers paid one of the highest cost in the world, the same price of US$0.13 (excl. VAT) per minute and for sms, is now US$0.11-(excl. VAT) and US$0.09-(excl. VAT) respectively.

Without mentioning the bad service on cell phones for the last few months, because as it seems the network when first installed had a certain capacity and the 2 companies are still issuing more sim cards serviced on the same network which is causing lots of technical interference when making calls.

Consumers still believe that these new low rates are expensive compared to other neighboring countries, they are looking for a new hope as rumors have been for long time talking about the privatization of the telecom sector in Lebanon and the arrival of a 3rd company that will push the competition harder.

Until this moment, all these are pure rumors and Lebanese consumers are still paying the highest rate for the lowest service no only in the region, but in the whole world.

And everytime I see these I have the feeling that Lebanese are beggars and I am one of them.

But I always feel bad about it, why ? For many reasons, first because we are not beggars and I don’t want ever to have this feeling (if you want to call it “The Lebanese Proud”, I have no problem with it), second if anyone is helping Lebanon, they should not wait for a non-stop thank you on billboards, third if these thank you messages are for political objectives, well i am sure majority of Lebanese are really pissed off with it.

Whomever put us in this deep shit, should work hard to take us out of it, who is it? I don’t really care for the name and I don’t really care to know, maybe all of us are responsible, every and each one of us, maybe some more than others, but at the end we are all responsible.

If I disagree with these billboards, it does not mean I am with the ones politically on the other side, I am with myself, because I might be the only one who can help me.

You want to help Lebanon, great we appreciate it, do it low profile and you, the Lebanese who are managing these donations and help, again keep it low, no need to shout loudly.

And please, all politicians, get the hell out of my life.

Lebanon961.com is a New Lebanese web portal dedicated 100% to the Lebanese community in Lebanon and all over the world.

In today’s world of internet dominance, Lebanon961′s mission is to provide the Lebanese with the latest and most up-to-date internet technologies in order to create the biggest Lebanese community on the net by allowing it’s members and supporters to interact, communicate and to share their valuable knowledge regarding any topic covered by Lebanon961 web project .

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This Lebanese Canadian bank think they have the right to have their own law and rule when it comes to park cars in front of their branch, they even have in front of the bank branch and the opposite side of the road plenty of their own plates saying in Lebanese “private parkings” where basically I guess that this part of the road is for everybody, for every Lebanese citizen who lives in this country have the right to park there because this is owned by no one, except LEBANON. Keeping in mind that when you park cars in this spot, the traffic get worse and worse when entering the streets of Beirut.

But as usual and as it happens every day around here, you can have your own rules and regulations and no one will be asking any kind of question.

Welcome to Lebanon

For Lebanese this is a very normal and regular issue to be held for hours in heavy traffic jam and congestion, because no one really cares about preparing our what so called highways for the winter season, and this is happening since we got our independence in 1943.

Basically all our neighboring countries envy us as we are known by the land of sun and water, but unfortunately all the good stuff we are receiving from the skies are not really being taken good care of instead we let it go for free.

I guess mentioning this will not make any difference for the guys responsible about all this, but I wanted to share the below pictures.

Lebanon is ranked 102 out of 180 worldwide and 11 out of 18 in our part of the world. We are … big time !!!

Click on picture to download high resolution format

Source: Transparency International