Telecom Egypt (TE) is cooperating with the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA) to develop the telecommunications infrastructure nationwide.
Sayed Gharbawi, deputy director of international sales at Telecom Egypt, said the process of replacing copper cables with fibre optic cables takes time, which will delay the completion of the project to modernise the sector’s infrastructure.
His statement came during the conference held on Monday by Eitesal association, addressing technological solution that can be applied for the infrastructure of smart cities.
Enterprise Business Unit Director at Vodafone Egypt Mohamed Kamal Abdallah said: “We must take an advantage of internet technology in smart cities, which can be applied in all public facilities to improve them, such as water and electricity facilities.”
Eitesal Chairman Hazem El-Tahawy said the telecommunications sector is the engine of growth of the ICT industry in Egypt, and should be prioritised as such.
He noted that the telecommunications market in Egypt has 90 million mobile users, 7 million fixed line users, and 3.6 million subscribers of high-speed internet services. He further noted that there are expectations that there will be an increase in the number of high-speed internet users to 5 million users by the end of 2016.
El-Tahawy said the telecommunications sector in Egypt contributes EGP 48bn to the GDP per year, or approximately 1.7% to 2%.
