Egypt teleco regulator allocates new frequencies to Orange Egypt for $440 million

Egypt’s telecoms regulator announced on Sunday it had allocated new radio frequencies of 30 MHz within 2600 band, via Time-Division Duplexing (TDD), to Orange Egypt.

The new frequencies were allocated in return for $440 million, to be used for providing mobile phone services in Egypt, the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) further said in a statement.

An addendum to the service licence issued by NTRA, was signed with Orange Egypt to officially allocate such new frequencies.

This step was taken in completion of the process initiated by NTRA to allocate new frequency bands of 80 MHz within 2600 band, via TDD.

The aforementioned frequencies were allocated to Vodafone Egypt, Telecom Egypt (WE) and Etisalat Egypt in return for $1.170 billion. By virtue of the new agreement signed between NTRA and Orange Egypt, 30 MHz shall be allocated to the latter within 2600 MHz, via TDD, and return for $440 million. Therefore, the value of frequencies allocated to the four mobile operators within 2600 MHz has now reached a total of $1.610 billion.

The step comes in conjunction with the inclusive plan set for improving telecom quality for mobile users in Egypt. New standards have been established and are included in the addendum signed between NTRA and Orange Egypt, to boost telecom services in the local market, in terms of voice and data, complying with the norms and standards established worldwide.

Operation of the new frequencies made available would contribute to achieving a quantum leap in telecom services. It would also contribute to raising the level of network-readiness to become able to provide future communication and information technology services in compliance with the quality standards applicable worldwide, NTRA added. In fact, this process would help to meet the increasing demand on telecom services in Egypt’s market, would also uphold digital information and pave the way for the Digital Egypt.