Lonestar Vs. Cellcom – Getting connected

I was in Liberia the first couple of weeks of October of this year, and while I was there I visited Lonestar and Cellcom to get a sense of their internet offers, both mobile and fixed wireless. I wanted to visit Comium and Libtelco, but didn’t have the time. Libtelco does have a better than average website for a Liberian celluar company and you can find their pricing here: http://www.libtelco.com.lr/rates.html. The main point of this post is to update readers on what Liberia’s two biggest GSM companies are offering in terms of getting you on the internet.

Lonestar Cell:

Data Service on your phone:

Access Point Name: internetlcc
Everything else: leave blank

You can also dial *353*4# to check your data subscription status and *353*0# to terminate your subscription. Lonestar is also selling USB EDGE Modems for your computer for $40.00.

Fixed Wireless

Lonestar offers the following as part of their iConnect WiMax network, which is only available in Monrovia:

Note that it’s not specified how the bandwidth is split upstream/downstream.

Lonestar sells the following devices that you would have to buy to use the iConnect service:

• USB Dongle – $99.00
• Tower Max – A stationary receiver, as I recall it can operate at higher speeds than the USB dongle – $159.00
• WiFi Max – Same as Tower Max but with a built in WiFi access point – $199.00

All of this information was gathered from handouts and fliers at the Lonestar office and talking with Lonestar staff.

Also of note, Lonestar has Liberia’s first mobile money system. Check it out here: http://www.lonestarcell.com/download/Mobile_Money_User_Guide.pdf. For more on Mobile Money you can read a blog post from one of my Liberian colleagues. I also asked Lonestar for a list of the places they had cell towers. I thought this was a reasonable request. Like what if you’re stuck on the road from Fishtown to Harper and need to know which direction to walk in to get a signal. At first they thought I wanted lat,lon coordinates and they acted like this was a big deal, such information seemed super sensitive to them, as though with this knowledge I could bring down their network. Which all seemed rather silly to me. They said they’d send me a list of the towns the towers were in, but never did. I found this on their website which, more or less, answered my question: http://www.lonestarcell.com/page.php?pid=4. According to that page they have 77 villages and cities covered, cover approximately 82% of the Liberian population. They’re list of villages/cities covered is: Careysburg, Brewerville, Kakata, Harbel, Salala, Weala, Gbarnga, Suacoco, Gbatala, Totota, Palala, Bong Mines, Botota, Gold Camp, Ganta, Bahn, Kample, Kissipli, Kpen, Yekepa, Zuwuloo, Sanniquellie, Saclopea, Loguatuo, Tappita, Zwedru, Buchanan and Buchanan LAC, Voinjama, Foyah, Zorzor, Kolahun, Greenville, Yenwhen, Tubmanburg, Robertsport, Medina, Gbah, Sinje, Bo Water Side, Lofa Bridge, Sinoe, Harper, Pleebo, Zweinta, Karweaken Salaye, Vahun, Cesstos, Pleebo, Harper, Fish Town. You might have noticed that they only list 55 places here, and some of them are kind of the same, like listing “Sinoe” and “Greenville”, so I can only assume that this list is not comprehensive of all 77 locations they have.

Cellcom:

Data Service on your phone:

Access Point Name: web.cellcomnet.net
Everything else: leave blank

When I was at Cellcom they were running a deal where you would get a EDGE USB modem, that the flier said, “3G+ ready”, presumably indicating the modem could handle 3G if the network were also 3G, and one months worth of data for $49.00. The flier also said you get a “20% discount on all data packages”, so that’s nice.

I know the limits Cellcom enforces have caused problems for my friends who use the USB Modems for internet on their computers, but if you’re just checking email on your phone, maybe looking at a map or two, and looking at basic, websites, you should be able to stay under them.

Fixed Wireless

Cellcom offers the following as part of their fixed wireless network, which is only available in Monrovia:

Just like Lonestar, Cellcom does not specified how the bandwidth is split upstream/downstream.

Cellcom charges $390.00 to setup and install their fixed wireless service at your location.

All of this information was gathered from handouts and fliers at the Cellcom office and talking with Cellcom staff.

I also asked Cellcom staff for a list of the places they had cell towers, and they reacted just like Lonestar, first acting like that was a major security breach and then promising to send me something and never doing it. I looked over their website for a listing of places covered and couldn’t find anything.

Things to Keep in Mind

With lower costs and no usage limits it would seem that Lonestar is the clear winner here. However, as anyone who’s lived in Liberia knows, the real issue is reliability. How many hours and days of the month will your service be down, how often will it be so slow that it’s unusable? On this trip I didn’t have time to perform any tests to determine these factors.

Later,