Lebanese telecoms minister, Charbel Nahhas has said an overhaul in the country’s telecoms infrastructure, including upgrades to the broadband network over the next 16 months, is expected to generate up to $500m in new investments, Reuters has reported. A $41m contract has been awarded to Lebanon’s Consolidated Engineering and Trading, with France’s Alcatel-Lucent acting as subcontractor. Nahhas also revealed that the privatisation of the two state-owned mobile firms, MTC Touch and Alfa, are not to take place before improvements in the infrastructure were complete in 2012.