Cyberia (ISP)

Cyberia, Internet for Everyone

Type	Private Company
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	1995
Headquarters	Beirut, Lebanon
Key people	Bassam Jaber (CEO) and Ali Zogheib (CCO)
Website	www.cyberia.net.lb

Cyberia is a West-Asian ISP that was established in 1995 by Transmog Inc. serving branches in the Middle East (Lebanon and Jordan) and the Gulf Region (Saudi Arabia). Cyberia offers:

• ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line): A combination of phone and data signals on a phone line that allows Internet Connection to reach very high speeds.

• Wireless Broadband: The transfer of internet over a certain distance without the using electrical conductors or any wires. So, instead of hooking the ineternet to the computer, the computer can be hooked up with the internet connection.

• Dial Up: Form of an Internet connection that uses fixed phone line.

Fair Usage Policy is a policy Cyberia uses to ensure that all the subscribers of Cyberia have an enjoyable experience while using the Internet. This policy only applies to shared broadband users. Cyberia will monitor the internet capacity used by each subscriber during the unlimited period and will apply a speed restriction to the user who exceeds the normal internet consumption. If this account continues to use high capacityagain during the unlimited period, Cyberia will hold the account user liable of breaking the "Fair Usage Policy" and will stop the service either temporarily or permanently without prior notice.^[1]

In 1996, Cyberia obtained license to offer Internet services to the market, and later that year it became the leading Internet service provider.

In 1998, Cyberia launched a consulting group for the region which made it have a very good infrastructure and thus its launching in Saudi Arabia in 1999

In July 2003, Cyberia got its hands on INDEX Holdings L.L.C (One of Jordan's top ISP) ^[2]

In 1999, Cyberia was given the year's "Best Commercial Internet Solution" award for both regions the Gulf and Middle East from Microsoft Corporation. It was chosen for this special award because of its marvelous performance and success in Internet aplications development, and for building high and innovative Internet solutions for its consumers.

Lebanon

Cyberia is now the major Internet Service Provider in Lebanon and it owns more than 50 percent market share.^[2] In 2009, a meeting was held with the board of directors CEO and chairman Kamal Shehadi (Representatives from private companies licensed to provide Internet Services with representatives from companies such as, "Cable 1" and representatives of Internet service providers, "Cyberia", "IDM", "Broadband Plus" and "TerraNet" to raise discussion about the problems that are facing Lebanese consumers and how to deal with it.^[3]

Despite the fact that Cyberia offers excellent Internet services, it had a misconcept with the Fair Usage Policy which was applied to DSL users with free night traffic. This raised a huge feud amongst those customers since they had now a limit on the amount of download they can do at night. However, this policy proved to be effective on the long term. After all, this was made to set restrictions and to ensure that users who engage in substantial continuous download activity will not impair the performance of the network, thus decreasing the speed of the broadband service available to all other users.

Saudi Arabia

Jordan

Shareholder's Structure

95% Oger Telecom Ltd., 5% Saudi Oger Ltd.^[4]

References

1. ^ http://www.thisiscyberia.com/services/consumer/acceptable.htm
2. ^ ^{a b} http://www.cyberia.net.lb/about/
3. ^ http://www.almanar.com.lb/newssite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=71352&language=ar
4. ^ http://www.ogertelecom.com/Subsidiaries.html