Archive for mobile phone

Suspending mobile provider license threatens Telecom Egypt, says official

by admin
November 1st, 2012

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, has criticized the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) for refusing to offer a fourth mobile phone license, despite the fact that it was announced more than three years ago.

He said that this would threaten state-owned Telecom Egypt (TE), the only provider for landlines, which is losing market shares to mobile phone companies, which now possess more than 85 percent of the market.



He called on both President Mohamed Morsy and Prime Minister Hesham Qandil to save the company from collapse, especially as it employs more than 60,000 people.



NTRA President Amr Badawy insists on suspending the license.



He explained that the mobile phone companies provide landline and mobile phone and Internet services, while Telecom Egypt only provides ground services for both. Statistics from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics show that Egyptians spend LE35 billion annually on mobile phones and the Internet, but only 14 percent goes to TE, while the rest goes to mobile phone providers to transfer abroad.



He contended that a certain mobile phone company made profits 35 times the investment it had initially spent.



TE workers have threatened demonstrations to pressure the government to grant their company the license.



Landline subscribers dropped from 11 million to 8 million in the last three years, during which time 92 million mobile lines were sold by the three providers: Vodafone, Etisalat and Mobinil.



Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
 

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Categories Egypt Economy
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Customers complain mobile phone operators are secretly charging more

by admin
October 18th, 2012

The Consumer Protection Agency filed a complaint to the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) against the country’s three major cell phone operators  on Thursday.

The agency is asking for investigations into whether Vodafone, Etisalat Egypt and Mobinil have a secret agreement to increase the prices for prepaid mobile credit cards.

ECA head Atef Yacoub said he received several complaints alleging that since January 2012, the three companies have begun cutting 51 piasters a month from customer credit via a “stamp tax,” although such a tax was not stipulated in the contracts the customers had signed.

If these allegations are true, the service providers would be carrying out monopolistic practices, Yacoub said.

Communications and Information Technology Minister Hany Mahmoud said earlier this month that his ministry was considering a 15 percent sales tax increase on mobile phone users.

There are 90 million subscribers to the three networks, according to the ministry.

Edited translation from MENA 

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Categories Egypt, Egypt Top Stories
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Ministry mulls increasing mobile phone taxes

by admin
October 11th, 2012

The Communications and Information Technology Ministry is considering increasing the 15 percent sales tax on mobile phone users, Minister Hany Mahmoud said Thursday.

He did not specify by how much.

Mahmoud also said the increase for prepaid phone cards, used by 80 percent of users, would be paid for by the service providers.

There are 90 million subscribers to Egypt's three telecommunications networks, Etisalat, Vodafone and Mobinil, according to the ministry.

Finance Minister Momtaz al-Saeed had in previous statements said that he was discussing the increase with Mahmoud, reports that the latter had initialy denied.

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Categories Egypt, Egypt Top Stories
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Mobinil executive: State attempting to monopolize market

by admin
August 16th, 2012

The deputy chairman of Egyptian mobile service provider Mobinil, Ashraf Halim, has criticized the Egyptian government for plans to directly grant the license for the country’s fourth mobile phone network to the state-run Telecom Egypt.

Halim said the government is seeking to enable the company to monopolize the market and curtail competition. Telecom Egypt is the country’s sole provider for the land line phone services.

Halim said adding a fourth operator to the current active networks, Vodafone, Mobinil, and Etisalat has no economic benefit, noting that the three companies fill 106 percent of local demand.

He said that if the government is to grant the fourth license to Telecom Egypt, it should give mobile companies the right to use fiber optic networks currently reserved for Telecom Egypt, so as to ensure competitiveness.

He added that mobile companies had proposed for licenses to create their own international calling networks and demanded to have their own fiber optic networks, but were met with impossible conditions by the government, which included paying LE2 billion in fees in addition to LE20 for each new customer.

On Tuesday, the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority held a meeting chaired by the new Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Hany Mahmoud, where it decided to postpone offering the fourth license until further consideration.

An official at the regulator told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the minister suggested the license to be directly granted to Telecom Egypt.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm

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Categories Egypt Economy
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90 million cell phone subscriptions in Egypt, ministry says

by admin
August 1st, 2012

There are currently over 90 million cell phone subscribers in Egypt, while only 8.6 million people use landlines, according to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Around 31 million people use the internet, with 4,655 telecommunications companies employing abut 214,000 workers.

The ministry issued a report stating that the three mobile phone operators, Mobinil, Vodafone and Etisalat, together had 92 million subscribers as of April 2012, with a monthly growth rate of 14 percent and an annual growth rate of 23.41 percent. Some people have more than one cell phone, and the number also includes foreigners residing in Egypt.

The annual growth rate for landline users is 3.75 percent.  

As of April 2012 the monthly growth rate for internet users was 0.07 percent and the annual was 22 percent.

Many mobile phone users access the internet on their phones. There were 11.5 million mobile internet users as of April 2012, with a monthly growth rate of 1.67 percent and an annual growth rate of 28.5 percent.

Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
 

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France Telecom says it lost 615,000 customers in first quarter

by admin
May 7th, 2012

France Telecom, the former state monopoly, said on Thursday that increased competition cost it more than 600,000 mobile phone clients in the first quarter, denting earnings.
France Telecom said its operating profit in the three months to March fell by 8.1 per cent from the figure a year earlier to 3.4 billion euros ($4.5 billion), short of market forecasts for 3.6 billion euros.
 
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France Telecom says it lost 615,000 customers in first quarter

by admin
May 7th, 2012

France Telecom, the former state monopoly, said on Thursday that increased competition cost it more than 600,000 mobile phone clients in the first quarter, denting earnings.
France Telecom said its operating profit in the three months to March fell by 8.1 per cent from the figure a year earlier to 3.4 billion euros ($4.5 billion), short of market forecasts for 3.6 billion euros.
 
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New mobile rules would only affect new entrants, official says

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April 11th, 2012

Proposed amendments to an Egyptian law requiring mobile telecom operators to give a percentage of their shares to citizens would apply only to new licence operators, a communications ministry official said on Tuesday.

Orascom Telecom Media and Technology said in February it had reached a preliminary accord to sell most of its stake in local mobile operator Mobinil to fellow shareholder France Telecom.

News that Parliament was discussing amendments to the telecom law helped push Mobinil's shares down 5.6 percent on Tuesday, traders said. Some investors have voiced concern over a lack of recent news on progress of the Mobinil deal.

Local landline monopoly Telecom Egypt has a venture with Vodafone that vies with Mobinil for leadership of the mobile phone market. The third-placed operator is the Egyptian affiliate of UAE-based Etisalat.

OTMT shares dropped 4.6 percent on Tuesday and Telecom Egypt slipped 4 percent.

Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mohamed Salem said draft changes to the telecom law were required because of "the sensitivity of the activity" in which telecom companies are involved, financial daily Al Mal reported.

He said preliminary discussions focused on a proposal to ensure 20 percent of the shares in a local telecom business were owned by Egyptians.

The ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the changes, if they occurred, would not apply to existing businesses.

"The proposed amendments to the telecommunications regulatory law in Parliament are limited to new licenses and won't be applied to existing operators," the official said. "They will be applied to the fourth operator in case it exists."

The official also denied that there would be a minimum level of Egyptian ownership fixed at 20 percent.

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Categories Egypt Economy
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Phone operators mobilize for World Cup qualifier

by admin
March 28th, 2012

Even mobile phone operators in Egypt are gearing up for the upcoming World Cup qualifying soccer match between Egypt and Algeria. In anticipation of an unprecedented spectator turnout, mobile phone operators are planning to double the strength of their networks in the area surrounding the Cairo International Stadium as well as nearby areas in Nasr City and along Salah Salem Road.

The National Telecommunication Regulation Authority (NTRA) has over the last few days urged Egypt’s three mobile phone operators – Mobinil, Vodafone and Etisalat – to boost network coverage in the area surrounding the stadium.

Mobile operators were told to give priority to voice services over the Internet and G3 services, said Amr Badawy, CEO at NTRA. The match represents a challenge for the companies, he added, explaining that pressure on their networks is expected to increase after the match if Egypt qualifies. Increased pressure on phone networks during feasts and key soccer matches usually leads to weaker coverage and leaves many subscribers unable to make calls or exchange messages. 

Khaled Hegazy, general manager of government and external relations at Vodafone, said that his company would take the necessary measures to bolster their call-making services. 

Sources at Etisalat say that the network boosters they have set up in the area surrounding the stadium can cover more than 90,000 subscribers, which is greater than the capacity of the stadium itself.

Mobinil is working on multiplying the capacity of its networks, and is looking at the idea of having vehicles equipped to provide supplementary coverage networks stationed in certain areas surrounding the stadium, according to Yasser Shaker, director of network engineering and development at Mobinil.

Translated from the Arabic Edition.

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Egypt minister sees telecom tender within 4 weeks

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March 6th, 2012

Egypt will launch a tender for mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) licences within four weeks, the country's communications minister said on Tuesday.

MVNOs are mobile phone service providers which lease excess network capacity from telecom operators.
 
Industry executives had been hoping the tender would take place last year but major investment decisions have been delayed by the army-backed interim government appointed after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.
 
Companies aiming to secure an MVNO licence include Telecom Egypt, the country's landline monopoly, which is sitting on record amounts of cash and wants to boost its presence in fast-growing mobile and data services.
 
"We are finalising the format for the MVNO and hopefully we should expect (to issue the tender) in four weeks' time," Mohamed Salem, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, told Reuters during an industry conference in Qatar.
 
Salem said he was unsure how many MVNO licences Egypt would issue and declined to say how much selling them could raise for a government that is struggling to finance its budget deficit.
 
He said fourth-generation mobile network licences would also be sold some time after June, by when the government would have formulated a new strategy for expanding broadband services.
 
"4G will be included in the broadband strategy," said Salem. "The broadband plan … will be issued by the end of June."
 
Mobile phone subscriptions now roughly equal Egypt's population and companies are seeking to maintain revenue growth by encouraging customers to use more data services.
 
Egypt is the Arab world's most populous country, with more than 80 million people.
 
Telecom Egypt has a venture with Vodafone that vies with Mobinil for leadership of the mobile phone market. The third-placed operator is Etisalat Egypt.
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