Dr. Mohamed Salem -Minister of Communications and Information Technology- said that the government is interested in improving the quality of mobile services offered by its three companies because their current level is unsatisfying, on the other hand, the minister revealed that the “National Telecom Regulatory Authority” has finished the preparatory arrangements of granting virtual mobile license which is expected to be announced within the next weeks.
The virtual mobile network is considered a mobile communications network with no bandwidth or infrastructure but this network also buys minutes of calls from the licensed telecom operator and the owner of the frequency spectrum and infrastructure, and then re-sold to customers under different brand and name.
Salem said that the door is open for «Egypt Telecom» and any other company willing to enter the completion.
The minister added that the mobile market now reached a saturation stage of 103% and the competition between companies operating in the market has reached unprecedented levels because of the policies of prices burning between companies in order to increase sales of lines, which amounted to about 82 million lines.
He said that the government is monitoring the market but they do not interfere in the corporate policies in order to respect the freedom of competition, but it intervenes when there is a breach or violation of the laws.
Salem said that he had discussed improving the standards of quality for customers with the companies in the last period, adding that there are several factors of the decline in the quality of service such as the most notably factor of the exposure of a number of stations and towers to stealth, and the refusal of some people’s of establishing mobile towers in residential areas because of health considerations.
The minister said that the prices of mobile services in Egypt is very low if compared with many other countries, stressing that Egypt is one of the cheapest countries in the world regarding the prices of mobile services because of the intense competition between the three companies
Amwal Al Ghad
