Tech infrastructure for Egypt’s new capital city may cost $383.1 million

Setting up infrastructure to lay telephone and internet cables for Egypt’s administrative capital city will cost around 3 billion Egyptian pounds ($383.1 million), senior sources in the Ministry of Housing said Sunday.

Sources told Amwal Al Ghad that the initial installation cost was estimated to be 8 billion pounds. Yet, in cooperation with the Ministry of Communications, better offers were taken to reduce the cost by 40 percent.

The new capital will be provided with cables that support up to 1 terabyte in addition to 100 megabytes for the proposed city’s residential units in the next two years. The infrastructure works are set to be carried out through cooperation between Ministry of Communications, Ministry of Housing, and the Engineering Authority of the Armed Forces.

The new capital is meant to entirely adopt a smart system by using optical fibre cables or what is called “Fiber to the home” in the whole city.

The proposed new capital of Egypt is a large-scale project announced by Egyptian housing minister Mostafa Madbouly at the Egypt Economic Development Conference on 13 March 2015.

The new, yet-unnamed city is to be located 45 kilometres (28 miles), east of Cairo and just outside the Second Greater Cairo Ring Road in a currently largely undeveloped area halfway to the seaport city of Suez.

According to the plans, the city would become the new administrative and financial capital of Egypt, housing the main government departments and ministries, as well as foreign embassies. On 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi) total area, it would have a population of five million people, though it is estimated that the figure could rise to seven million.