The Ministry of Telecommunications undertakes the construction and equipping, operation and maintenance of all telecommunications services in Lebanon comprising fixed, mobile, all internet services, and postal services. The Ministry of Telecommunications determines the fees imposed on these services and ensures proper functioning and monitors the activities of the private sector in the Telecommuni
cations field, and concludes international agreements in this domain. The Lebanese law of 1959 recognizes the principle of restricting all communications with the Lebanese State - Ministry of Telecommunications, which can grant licenses to the private sector to invest in services that the State elected not to provide. Upon the issuance of Law 431/2002 which adopted the principle of liberalization of the telecommunications sector, the Ministry allowed the private sector the opportunity to invest in all telecommunications services. However, the services of the fixed and mobile phone, remains under the State monopoly such that only the Ministry of Telecommunications can invest in the telephony services and other related services, especially voice over IP. Despite its ownership of the sector, the State have entrusted the private sector to manage the two mobile networks, and plans to launch an international tender to award the management of the two networks and the creation of a third one. As for the Internet services, the Ministry of Telecommunications has provided all infrastructure, equipment, fiber-optic networks, DSL network , mobile 3G and 4G, and did not monopolize from the start the data services, allowing the private sector multiple opportunities to invest as Internet Service Providers (ISPs), or Mobile Internet Service Providers (MISPs), or Data Service Providers (DSPs). The Ministry of Telecommunications used to manage exclusively the Postal and other related public services according to the prevailing laws and regulations and texts of Arab and international postal agreements, but with the assignment of post management to Libanpost and licensing some companies to carry out internal and external post transport, the current role of the Ministry of Telecommunications is a supervisory role on the operator of the postal services, as well as having a regulatory role for this sector to which all postal carriers are subject to the regulations issued by the Ministry, and commit to the tariffs and postal stamps issued by the Ministry. Pending the implementation of the Telecommunications Law No. 431/2002, the Ministry remains the regulator and the operator and the supervisor for this sector in all its elements.
