Egypt’s MCIT To Finalize Broadband Strategy Next Aug

Egypt’s Information and Communication Technology Ministry (MCIT) is planning to finish the executive plan of broadband strategy within the next five months to put it up next August.

Eng. Atef Helmy, Egyptian Minister of Information and Communication Technology, said the MCIT is studying the views of all participants that expected to implement the strategy, especially the governmental authorities; represented in the Ministries of Education, Health and Agriculture.

Helmy referred that the ICT sector understands the expected role of ‘broadband’ ‘high-speed internet’ in the light of the importance of depending on it in all social and economic aspects.

Moreover, Helmy has noted that the first phase of broadband strategy, which will be finished within two years, aims to spread the internet services in the schools, hospitals and to connect the citizens’ data, as well as to ease the use of this strategy depending on the internet and the new technological methods.

Helmy added that the second phase which extend to 2020 eyes to cover all the governorates with high speeds.

A report issued by MCIT has elaborated that the number of internet users in Egypt is 31.03 million users, and the number of internet subscribers are about 37.99%.

He added that the number of home Internet subscribers amounted to 40.98%, with an annual growth 6.33%; pointing to the number of mobile subscribers via broadband internet  reach up to 90.07% while the number of USB Modem subscribers  amounted to 3.07 million users.

In November 2011, the MCIT and the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) launched a strategy for 10 years in order to spread high-speed of internet services with an average of 20 MB per second with total investments $ 2.4 billion; this is in a partnership between the governmental sector, which carries 15% of investments, while the private sector bears 85% of the investment cost of the nationwide internet infrastructure.