Egypt's International Telecommunications

Due to its privileged geographical location, Egypt is considered an international telecommunication hub. A number of global and regional fiber optic cables have landing points in Egypt, such as SEA-ME-WE 1, 2, 3 and 4 submarine cables that link the country to the outside world across the Mediterranean, South East Asia and Western Europe. Egypt is also linked to the FLAG cable with two landing points in Alexandria and Suez that connect Egypt and the whole Middle East to Europe, as well as to the Far East. In addition, there are a number of regional optical fiber cables that connect Egypt to countries like Italy, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Sudan. Satellite communication has also been used extensively in various applications but has recently become expensive for data and Internet access compared to terrestrial solutions.¹³

Although Telecom Egypt has so far enjoyed a monopoly over international communications, Egypt's commitments under the WTO’s basic telecommunications agreement bring this to an end as of January 1st 2006. Prices for international bandwidth have experienced a number of successive reductions during the last five years, showing a clear sign of the government’s commitment to link the country to the global society. Accordingly, Egypt’s international capacity to the Internet has experienced an exponential boost, attaining 3.345 Gbps at present.¹⁴ At the IP level, local NSPs are getting transit services from different global IP carriers such as UUNet, Teleglobe and FLAG.

Furthermore, in July 2000, TE signed an agreement with FLAG for building a local Point of Presence (PoP) in Cairo in order to provide licensed NSPs with managed bandwidth services, as well as IP transit. As demand for bandwidth increases over time, this agreement has resulted in more reduction in prices since FLAG has so far been the only international carrier in Egypt that offers one-stop-shop services (both transmission and IP connectivity) which gives it a competitive edge over the others.