All four of Egypt’s mobile operators are officially clear to offer 5G services after the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) awarded 5G licences to Vodafone Egypt, Orange Egypt, and e& Egypt on Monday.
The three operators join Telecom Egypt, which secured its 5G licence from the NTRA in January for US$150 million. A statement from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) said the licences for Vodafone, Orange and e& are valued at a total of US$675 million.
According to Daily News Egypt, MCIT minister Amr Talaat said at a press conference that 5G is needed to not only improve mobile network capacity and service quality, but also to support development of IoT-based solutions for smart cities and vertical sectors including logistics, healthcare, and agriculture.
Talaat also said all four telcos are expected to partner with each other as well as compete to foster development of 5G services in ways that strengthen the role of the IT sector in economic development, the report added.
“We believe this partnership will be crucial to the success of the 5G rollout in Egypt,” Talaat said.
The NTRA has been planning to issue 5G licences for almost a year, and had initially intended to do so by the end of 2023. However, the Ashraq Business news service reported in October 2023 that telcos were asking for the dates to be pushed back to give them more time to secure funding.
Even so, Egyptian telcos have been busy getting their networks ready for 5G. At Mobile World Congress 2024 in February, Telecom Egypt said it had successfully trialled 5G with Ericsson in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital using 2.6 GHz spectrum, and had also signed on Huawei as a partner to deploy its 5G network.
In July, Telecom Egypt struck a partnership deal with Nokia to launch 5G in Alexandria, Aswan, Cairo, Giza, and Luxor using Nokia’s AirScale 5G gear later this year.
Ericsson has also spent the year striking various technology partnerships with Vodafone Egypt, Orange Egypt, and e& Egypt.
According to Arab Finance, Vodafone Egypt CEO Mohamed AbdAllah said on Monday his company would launch 5G services within the next six months.
Meanwhile, the launch of 5G coincides with reports that telecoms services in Egypt overall may soon become more expensive, although the cost of the 5G licences hasn't been cited as the primary reason.
NTRA executive president Mohamed Shamroukh told Ashraq Business on Monday that the regulator is working on increasing prices for telecoms services, which he attributed to surging energy prices that are impacting telecoms opex costs.
In October last year, Ashraq Business reported that Egyptian telcos asked the NTRA for permission to increase prices as much as 30% as profit margins continue to shrink due to rising inflation.
