BEIRUT: Lebanon is set for another Internet upgrade as work on the IMEWE submarine cable nears conclusion, the adviser to Telecoms Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui told The Daily Star Tuesday.

The upgrade primarily aims to eliminate bandwidth bottlenecks, or congestion on Lebanon’s international linkages with global Internet providers, which is still stifling connection speeds across the country

“The upgrade on IMEWE, linking Lebanon and Cyprus, will allow the elimination of bottlenecks on international links that are still slowing down Internet speeds,” said Firas Abi-Nassif, adding that “the upgrade is due to be finalized within a six-month period.”

Most Internet users still report that they still do not benefit from the full speeds stipulated in their new ADSL contracts with OGERO, the public landline and Internet provider, and most privately run Internet providers.

In October last year, Lebanon started offering a new Internet package that included an 80 percent reduction on end-user ADSL prices.

The government had promised Internet speeds would increase by up to eight times, putting the minimum speed at 1 mb/s.

Abi-Nassif said bottlenecks were the main reason behind the problem, and promised that subscribers would be able to benefit from their entire quotas after the upgrade was finalized.

He confirmed that a larger-scale project to upgrade the county’s submarine cables was imminent while the Telecommunications Ministry and the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority announced they had nearly arrived at a final agreement on the new submarine cable dubbed EUROPA.

While details of the negotiations remain classified, Abi-Nassif said the Lebanese and Cypriot sides have agreed on the framework for launching the $10 million project, which needs endorsement by the Cabinet.

“[The two sides] agreed on the principles of cooperation for the EUROPA system construction project, a new high-capacity submarine cable between Cyprus and Lebanon,” Cyta said in a statement issued Tuesday following a visit by Sehnaoui to Cyprus.

According to Abi-Nassif, construction of the EUROPA cable could start at the end of 2012 if the Cabinet managed to sign off on the project in time.

The statement said the two sides had also inked principles for the provision of a share of transmission capacity on Cyta’s ALEXANDROS cable subsystem which has landings in Cyprus, Egypt and France.

Abi-Nassif highlighted that the linkage with ALEXANDROS was highly important as it would help slash Internet costs for providers by some 75 percent, in addition to providing the means for a further boost in connection speeds.

“Instead of $4 million to $5 million paid for the right of use on a 10 GB/s over a 15 years period, price would be reduced to around $1 million,” he said.

The lower prices would allow for a further reduction in Internet rates charged by providers.

The new cable will boost the country’s Internet reliability as the system will be in a position to enhance the existing CADMOS and IMEWE cables, also connecting Lebanon and Cyprus, by providing a high-quality alternative route to the older cables.

“The new resilient cable route will provide connectivity to European destinations and beyond, enhancing connectivity between the Middle East and Europe,” Cyta said in its statement.

This would prevent unexpected Internet blackouts that would be possible if the country remained completely reliant on IMEWE.

Internet connections went down across the county a couple of times last when the IMEWE failed.

Abi-Nassif stressed that the project would attract investment in various sectors that require high Internet capacity, including call centers, and other businesses that intensively require Voice over IP.

According to Cyta, EUROPA will also allow for reciprocal business opportunities to access new markets, particularly as the economic importance of Asia gains momentum in the coming years.

Lebanon could potentially benefit from the resale of capacity to neighboring countries.