Minister of Communications and Information Technology Khaled Negm said that he had offered Telecom Egypt an opportunity to review its internet prices, before all mobile phone companies submit the modified prices to the ministry.
During a seminar held at the Egyptian-Canadian Business Council yesterday, the minister said: "We are working 18 hours a day to achieve something for our country, and we hope the Internet penetration rate reaches 50 percent, which requires supplying one million homes with the service each year."
The ministry seeks an agreement with mobile phone operators, to extend the network along 3,200 km of roads, especially in Upper Egypt, said Negm.
It also seeks to confront the monopoly in the sector of Internet services through opening the market for all companies, adding that fourth-generation mobile services is the strategic choice for 2016.
He added that TE has recently changed many cables, striving to provide speeds up to 24 MB. However, the ministry aims to provide a speed of 100 MB.
Negm said he had met with the governors of Ismailia, Cairo, Fayoum and Giza, and agreed with them not to issue any new building permits, before assuring that the house is ready to be connected with optical fibre cables.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
