Tripoli, 26 July:
The internet service provider (ISP) market is to opened up to the local private sector to compete with the . . .[restrict]monopoly state supplier, Libya Telecom and Technology (LTT).
The announcement, by government spokesman Nasser Al-Mana on Wednsday, will come as good news to internet users in Libya who for years have suffered from very poor customer service and the poor general treatment from the state-owned monopoly.
Last week it was announced that Libya has the slowest internet speeds in the world. In a report, American company Akamai said that North Africa and the Middle East region had poor internet performance compared to other parts of the world and that Libya was bottom of the list. It reported that half the country has internet speeds of less than 256 kilobytes per second (kbps).
In fact, large parts of rural Libya have no internet at all.
LTT was set up during the previous regime and was headed by Mohamed Qaddafi, eldest son of the former dictator.
However, even after liberation, internet service has been very poor partly due to damaged infrastructure due to the war and partly due to the explosion in internet use.
It is now hoped that the injection of competition will greatly improve the service.
It is believed that a number of Libyan businessmen are already looking into investing in the ISP sector. [/restrict]
