Four operators will collectively pay $675 million for 15-year licences – incumbent Telecom Egypt received its licence in January
Egypt’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has awarded 5G operating licences to e&, Orange and Vodafone after an opaque, long-winded process that began in 2019. Incumbent Telecom Egypt was granted its licence in January with little fanfare and no explanation of why it got a nine-month start on the rest.
The country’s Ministry of Communications and IT (MCIT) said the four operators are paying a total of $675 million for 15-year permits that covers 5G and extends the operating licences for all the previous generations of mobile networks.
Telecom Egypt paid $150 million in January, hence the other three have to pay more than $525 million between them, but how the total is split is unknown. The process was complicated by the fact that the allocation of spectrum was from refarming spectrum rather than awarding new frequencies, and each operator can choose how they use what they held with previous licences, and how much they held and in which bands.
Consumers might not be totally delighted though: last October, Ashraq Business reported that Egyptian telcos asked the NTRA for permission to increase prices as much as 30% as profit margins were squeezed by rising inflation. Now they need to claw back the cost of the licences and build out 5G too.