Beirut, June 24, 2025: touch Chairman and CEO Dr. Salem Itani gave a comprehensive presentation about the latest developments in the touch network, pertaining mainly to its optimization and the company's readiness for the summer season, in addition to the end of year plans. He also answered all questions and inquiries from the press. Dr Itani presentation was part of the activities of the second edition of the 10Xict Information and Communications Technology Conference and Exhibition, which kicked off on June 23, under the patronage of Minister of Telecommunications Charles Hajj at the Habtoor Hotel.
Dr. Itani said that the availability of touch network across all Lebanese territories reached 96%. The network also witnessed significant improvement in voice Quality of Experience, reaching 100% (excellent), while the overall data QoE recorded 76.4% (good).
He also gave an overview about the network in the South, and stated, "There are 25 sites out of service for reasons ranging from damaged stations to those being relocated to other locations, in addition to sites that cannot be accessed for security reasons. Noting that the network problems in sensitive border areas affect the quality of communications due to the increased usage congestion and the long coverage distance on the 800 MHz wave during peak times."
Simultaneously, Dr. Itani indicated that “touch started implementing a plan to install about 60 new sites in various Lebanese regions to fill coverage gaps, replacing those that were removed due to a dead end with property owners. Meanwhile, the number of sites still facing problems has been reduced to 48 out of 1,330 sites, with the aim of further improving network performance. These problems range from theft, power supply problems, and inaccessibility, among others.
Dr. Itani emphasized that touch's network improvement plan, being implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Telecommunications, includes coverage, capacity, and enhancing certain service features. The plan relies on the following components: coverage enhancement; network and sites availability; QoE enhancement; service optimization, and a summer readiness plan.
In terms of coverage enhancement, touch is currently working to deploy new sites and additional sectors, redistribute damaged sites, implement physical improvements, and deploy 20 narrow-beam antennas. Regarding network and sites availability, the focus is on resolving sites issues in security-sensitive areas, redeploying dismantled sites, accelerating the transfer of additional sites, and increasing power availability. Service optimization includes improving network features and coverage to achieve a balanced exchange between the 800-1800 MHz frequency bands, reducing internal interference, and upgrading new capacity carriers, fiber optics, and microwaves. These efforts also include increasing basic data transmission capacity, enabling 4G in a number of new sites, and enabling VoLTE (Voice over Data) service.
To ensure the success of the promising summer season, touch has prepared six MBTS mobile base sites and two high-capacity sites for use in various events, such as festivals. In addition to proactive improvements in summer resort areas and those hosting various events. Capacity upgrades have also been carried out for roaming links.