(AFP Photo)
Yehia Tharwat, CEO of e-commerce company Link Egypt, revealed that decreasing prices of Internet services, increasing Internet speed, and improving its quality will have a direct and indirect positive impact on various industries. It is known that Internet services are one of the most important pillars in the business and industrial fields.
Improving Internet service quality will have a positive and direct effect on different sectors, especially the financial sector. For example, improving the quality will definitely help banks to offer technological solutions for their clients as well as offer financial applications to customers so they would be able to use these services through their smart phones.
Developing Internet speed will increase the volume of e-commerce and help in expansion, same goes for call centres, where Egypt is the pioneer country within the Middle East.
Regarding the confirmations made by the Minister of Communication and Information Technology on the implementation of the new speeds and prices starting from May, Tharwat believes that, when the minister fulfils his promise, he will have to implement this plan among a limited area. This is logical because Telecom Egypt has not yet completed replacing cooper cables with optical fibre cables.
Ahmed El-Oteify, Chairman of El-Ahly Communications Company, agreed with Tharwat. He noted the critical role played by the communications services generally and Internet particularly in the business field, since the more the online services improve, the more the companies’ productivity increases, especially companies working in the field of software and technological solutions.
El-Oteify thinks that increasing Internet speed will contribute to the growth of emerging companies’ activity, as means of communications are considered strategic tools for them to execute their creative ideas and turn them into profit-generating products. It will also improve applications and services offered by many sectors. The financial sector is on top of these sectors, where mechanisation of financial services will contribute to the ease of access to the service and maximising returns, which will only happen with Internet availability.
National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) requested that Internet companies present their offers regarding the suggested prices and speeds. However, only one company presented its offer and preferred to remain anonymous. The minister of communication made a deal with the youth of the Internet revolution movement to increase Internet speed so that the minimum speed would be 1mbps, in addition to lowering prices by the start of May.
