by albawaba

The hashtag “turn off your phone line” has been trending in Lebanon this morning as a nationwide boycott of the country’s two phone operators begins. The campaign aims to target the local Alfa and MTC Touch networks in protest against their high fees for customers. Activists have called for Lebanese mobile users to turn on “airplane mode” on Sunday to suspend calls, messages and internet use and therefore deny profits to the providers. "Our aim is to cancel the mandatory monthly recharge requirement and to reduce the cost of internal and international calls...that is it," a post on the movement's Facebook page, "I Will Turn Off My Line," read.

Lebanese mobile customers are required to top-up at the end of each month, or face their simcards being suspended. The companies targeted in the boycott enjoy a telecoms monopoly in Lebanon, providing the second-largest source of state revenue after taxation. This has caused some protesters to claim that the expensive mobile rates are a symptom of government corruption.

Lebanese prepaid users are charged the highest fees in the Arab world according to research by Byblos Bank’s Economic Research and Analysis Department from September 2015.

RA

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