Licensing of internet distributors in Egypt will improve and expand the country’s internet
On April 26th were published the comments of the Egyptian ICT Minister that unauthorized internet connections are one of the main causes of poor ADSL service and the national authority of telecommunications regulation (NTRA) intends to create a regional licenses in order to eliminate unauthorized connections.
Today there are internet distributors that work in an unregulated way and create Internet connections through the ISPs charging a lower fee. The authority will encourage these distributors to obtain licenses to provide Internet service on their own. These licenses will be introduced this year, but the general framework of the licenses has to be redefined before presenting it to distributors as well as the legal framework for resolving disputes between distributors and Internet service providers. It was reported that the ministry intends to make regional licenses in ten counties, including a maximum of two licenses for each sub-district.
Another source pointed out that day that Internet distributors welcome the ADSL service license, as this will serve as official recognition of the internet distributors by the Ministry of Communications and NTRA, especially when the authority refused to intervene until today in most disputes between distributors and Internet companies. Also it avoids the phenomenon of illegal cable and increase the profitability of the state and companies, as Internet distributors offer service at competitive price Unlawful Internet cables, which will help in spreading the Internet throughout the country.
In this context, on the same day that Egypt was placed 15th among 22 countries in the Arab world regarding Internet speed. Saudi Arabia is the region’s fastest Internet and then descending the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Morocco, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, Algeria, Djibouti, Syria, Tunisia, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority. After Egypt are Sudan, Libya, Mauritania, Lebanon, Yemen, Comoros and Somalia.
