Libya Telecom & Technology

As of September 2013, Libya Telecom and Technology had implemented a filter system designed to omit pornographic media from viewing to the public. The move to omit pornographic material was reportedly started by the Local Islamic Judicial Court of Tripoli archived under article 421 of criminal Penalties. This move comes with the 2013 implementation of Islamic sharia law post 17 February revolution. While it is true that pornographic material is being omitted by LTT's local filtering system, it has been found that non pornographic media has also been affected raising controversy on the move due to Libya's politically unstable environment.

LTT has recently 'seemingly' implemented forced restriction on YouTube videos, blocking viewers from seeing videos flagged by the community as inappropriate. LTT is also blocking users from accessing any major proxy sites. While under the guise to protect users from 'inappropriate' content, it appears political websites and anything deemed unfavorable to whoever's agenda is at LTT are also being blocked. These blocks are more questionable and controversial than they are useful and protective.

LTT's censorship filter affects any aspect regarding the reproductive system in humans, and or any words deemed "immoral", the recognition software does not discriminate between educative websites and adult websites, barring users from accessing information regarding reproduction, pregnancy, and medical - educative websites. Any input into a search engine with inappropriate words are instantly flagged by the system and access is denied.

Note: As of 2015 - 2016, LTT, still holding a monopoly on internet service provision in Libya, has achieved world status rating of 'Slowest internet in the world'. According to a new report from Akamai, the average internet connection speed in Libya is the slowest in the world at 0.5 Mbit/s. This puts Libya behind Bangladesh, which has an average connection speed of 1.0 Mbit/s, and Bolivia, Cameroon, Botswana, and Yemen with speeds of 0.9 Mbit/s.

ADSL Services are deemed slower than the new LibyaMax services due to disorganized cable infrastructure requiring adequate maintenance and repair providing consumers slower than expected internet speeds. Cable infrastructure especially in the Tripoli Residential capital area ( Omar Al-Mukhtar ) can be observed as being disorganized and damaged, with old copper wiring still serving the typical household and not providing the intended-advertised services. LTT Headquarters is near the capital - 'Al-Shat Road / Coastal Road' where Residential areas are most dense, hence cable infrastructure is inevitably disorganized and poorly maintained, bringing about poor service delivery to typical households in and out of the capital area.

WiMax service delivery is also ineffective due to large numbers of users connecting to major wireless hotspot antennas simultaneously. Although efforts were made by LTT to counter large numbers of connections in densely populated areas, service delivery still remains ineffective and slow (2017).

Notable speed differences: During Ramadan Iftar time, 8:00, for about one hour time, speed rates return to normal speeds, confirming that the infrastructure is overloaded with users using the same channels for WiMax services. It also appears, that Libya Telecom technology has been using Bandwidth throttling to change internet speeds in different areas of Tripoli to minimize bandwidth congestion. Around 6:00 a.m, internet speeds reach full speeds at around 250 kbit/s as stated in the contract between users and LTT, however, bandwidth speeds fall as low as 10 kbit/s after 9:00 am on daily basis for many around the capital area, Tripoli.

• Official website