Technology: Ring tones seek to rival Dubai
Older residents of Cairo remember the days of the party or shared line. Ring, ring. Both parties to the line – there were at least two – would race to the phone. If you got there second, the next door flat with whom the telephone was shared would ting the receiver to alert you to the fact that the call was for you.
And then there were international phone lines. Or rather there were not. Waiting lists ran into years, and the lucky recipient would have to leave a large deposit.
This persisted through the 1990s. And then came the GSM revolution.
Ten years on, mobile penetration rates by three mobile operators stand at 28m or about 35 per cent of the population, according to the ministry of communications and information technology. Other estimates put the penetration rate at up to 38 per cent.
The cheapest sim card can be bought for EGBP25 (USD5). ADSL line rental starts at EGBP45 a month. There are 400,000 DSL subscribers and 11.5m fixed-line users – up from 10.7m last year, according to ministry numbers.
Last year Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates paid USD2.9bn for a 15-year GSM and 3G licence. At the time the price was considered to be full.
But Etisalat in Egypt already has around 3m subscribers in nine months of operation. Etisalat owns 66 per cent of the subsidiary.
The remaining shares are held by a consortium including Egypt Post, National Bank of Egypt and Commercial International Bank, a local institution.
Observers are waiting for the granting of a second fixed-line licence next year.
Read More