On January 9, a cut in undersea cables between Sousse and Tolmeitha and another one between Benghazi and Brega at the eastern coast of Libya stopped Internet services and all telecommunications and air navigation in the eastern region, and weakened them in the western region.
The cut occurred because of a ship anchoring in an unauthorized place near Benghazi. It took authorities several days to fix the problem and many are asking why.
Chartered cables
On January 9, a cut in undersea cables between Sousse and Tolmeitha and another one between Benghazi and Brega at the eastern coast of Libya stopped Internet services and all telecommunications and air navigation in the eastern region, and weakened them in the western region.
The cut occurred because of a ship anchoring in an unauthorized place near Benghazi. It took authorities several days to fix the problem and many are asking why.
Chartered cables
Taha Kreiwi, spokesman of Almadar Aljdid Company – one of two local companies monopolizing the mobile communications market in the country, whose services were interrupted because of the cut – said his company did not deal “technically” with the problem because most cables linking eastern and western regions were rented from Hatif Libya Company.
Dr Mohamed Amari, head of the General National Congress (GNC) Communications Commission, said, “The commission contacted the Ministry of Communications directly after the cut off to learn about and address the reasons.”
He added that the minister immediately formed an operations room headed by Undersecretary Mohammed Balras Ali, and the ministry hired an international ship – one of two ships existent in the Mediterranean to repair submarine cables.
The sole ruin point
This was not the only cut-off in the eastern region. About a week earlier, there was another service outage after a fire erupted in the fiber optic cables at the Tuesday Market in Tripoli.
This has prompted observers to ask why such a fire stopped communications in the eastern region, which is no less than 1,000 km away from it.
“It is the odious centralization,” said Amari. “The former regime wanted to place everything related to the vital telecommunications sector close to it in the capital. Thus, all exchanges are there and when a malfunction occurs, service stops all over Libya. This is known as the sole ruin point,” he added.
This means that any problem at some point will stop the entire network, which also applies to international communications confined to two exchanges located also in the capital, according to Amari.
Security reasons
Kreiwi believes that “security reasons” were behind the foundation of “Almadar” company in 1996 – its name was changed later to “Almadar Aljdid” – to provide communications for the elite surrounding Gaddafi and his security services.
For this reason, says Kreiwi, Almadar lines were placed on the market at a relatively high price, but things went out of control when every Libyan citizen acquired a line, and the company’s staff contributed to spreading the lines by selling them to their relatives and acquaintances.
Kreiwi explains that the former regime’s focus on security, when dealing with the telecommunications sector was why “Almadar Aljdid did not own submarine cables and rented them from Hatif Libya Company, which the regime wanted to be the sole owner of communication infrastructure in the country.”
What is the solution?
“Telecommunication companies should distribute their exchanges across the country so that a break in one region does not affect the others,” Amari said.
“A land cable will have been installed by the end of February, and in the event of a failure in the undersea cable, communication services will be automatically transferred to it until the break is repaired,” he explained.
“As for international communications, we agreed with the ministry on establishing two other exchanges; one in Benghazi and the other in Derna (300 kilometer east of Benghazi) where a submarine cable links Libya to Greece,” he added.
“Almadar Aljdid has a scheme being implemented now, represented in establishing exchanges in the eastern region, which prevents complete service shutdown and confines it to the cut off area only, in addition to the provision of alternative exchanges,” Kreiwi said.
Out of coverage area
Centralization is not the only thing that hinders the communication sector and increases restlessness of Libyans. The words “the number you dialed is out of the coverage area” have been associated in the minds of mobile phones users with the absence and fluctuation of coverage, not to mention the interruption for up to more than a week, as usually happens in the oases region (southeastern Libya).
Many believe that this problem cannot be overcome without opening the communication market to foreign companies and eliminating the monopoly of the state-owned companies of Almadar Aljdid and Libyana.
While Amari said the power outage problem in some stations, resulting from the liberation war, was addressed, he recognized the occurrence of vandalism, citing the burning of the optic fibers in Tuesday Market in Tripoli. “It is usually committed by people who know the importance of these cables and the resulting damage,” he explained.
Open up competition
Before opening the door for foreign companies however, he demands “the arrangement of the sector,” through a law regulating communications and a law establishing the Communication Regulation Authority to monitor quality, distribute the so-called “frequency spectrum” to the companies and control the relationship between the companies and the state and between the state and citizens in terms of pricing and preventing monopoly.
“These laws are expected to be passed within three months,” he added, and then it will become possible to open the market to foreign companies in the presence of an entity that monitors and protects the rights of the state, citizens and foreign investors alike.
Gaddafi’s regime fell after it left its clear marks on everything in Libya, including the telecommunication sector, which the current authorities say they develop prompt plans to reform. Citizens are still waiting.
