The call centers of Alfa and Touch, the two mobile-phone
operators in Lebanon received 1,200,000 phone calls between 7 and 10:30 pm on
Monday, asking for the reason behind the interruption of the internet service.
However, they only managed to answer 35,000 of these calls.
For three and half hours, thousands of Lebanese Internet users
faced major disruption to their service for no clear reason, which caused a
hubbub.
In this regard, the office of the Minister of
Telecommunications Nicolas Sehnaoui announced that maintenance work carried out
on the I-ME-WE cable system in Marseille caused this outage.
In a phone call with LBCI, Sehnaoui held the telecommunications company
Ogero responsible for this disruption, considering it to be an “irresponsible
act”. He added that the government must take the necessary measures and punish
the perpetrators.
For its Part, Ogero said that in virtue of a cabinet decision issued six
months ago, the cabinet is supposed to be given notice of maintenance dates in
order to inform Ogero and the citizens.