The shortage of diesel fuel in Lebanon has been causing sporadic blackouts in internet connectivity across the country, isolating more and more subscribers from the web.
Today, at least 14,000 subscribers have no access to the internet in Lebanon.
Like many others, the telecommunications sector has been collapsing under the weight of the fuel crisis that has dried out its reserves of diesel fuel.
Ogero, which manages landlines and DSL subscriptions in Lebanon, has had its fair share of blackouts and malfunctions over the past few days, which deprived various areas, from north to south, of its internet services.
“The internet outage in Lebanon affected 14,000 subscribers out of a million subscribers who did not receive the service,” Ogero Director Imad Kreidieh told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Nonetheless, the majority of subscribers in Lebanon are receiving the same service they had before the crisis, he said.
The problem intensified after Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh decided to stop subsidizing fuel, which prompted importers to stop supplying the market with diesel fuel, Kreidieh said.
This forced some Ogero centers that had run out of fuel to suspend operations entirely.
Notably, the Central Bank has agreed to open credits for two ships carrying 47 million liters of diesel fuel, which is enough to supply the market for between five and six days.
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