Telecom Egypt (We) will need to inject huge investments in the coming period to build its own mobile network, with the company currently providing the service by default, depending on the network of other operators through local roaming agreements.
At the same time, the company will invest in the submarine cable sector after the purchase of the MENA submarine cable, as well as the agreement with Liquid Telecom to complete the construction of fibre optic network extending from South Africa to Cairo, which requires huge investments.
Mohamed Quraish, chairperson of the Scientific Society for Telecom Engineers (SSTE), said that Egypt Telecom’s pumping of investments to build its own mobile network does not interfere with its investments in building fibreoptic network to connect the countries of the African continent.
He added that both investments would have a viable economic impact.
He stressed the need of We to build its own mobile network, whereby it can provide new services that give it a competitive advantage over other companies.
He pointed out that Telecom Egypt has entered the mobile market in difficult circumstances, due to the rise in service prices in this period, as well as the provision of service by default depending on other operators of competitors, in addition to the saturation of the market, where mobile penetration exceeds 100%.
All of these factors push Telecom Egypt to find a suitable strategy for competition and maximize revenue.
Abu Quraish divided the competition strategies into three sections: price, quality service, and entering new markets.
He justified the need for Telecom Egypt to build its own mobile network to offer new services enabling it to compete with other companies.
He believes that in the case of building a network of its own will have the opportunity to integrate the land line with mobile service, such as receiving mobile phone calls on the fixed line and vice versa.
Telecom Egypt’s investment in building the optical fibre network is believed to be a step towards the invasion of new markets if it is linked to partnerships with African telecom operators to use Telecom Egypt’s routes to connect with the outside world, especially since Telecom Egypt has a large network of communications cables connecting the different continents of the world.
In this case, the company’s investment in building a fibre optic network in the African continent is supporting its presence in the local market as a mobile operator.
For his part, Khaled Negm, former minister of communications, said that Telecom Egypt’s investment in the mobile market is separate from its investments in infrastructure construction, both of which have an investment return. Therefore, there was an idea for a period of time for TE to separate the two companies, to enable each party to freely inject the appropriate investments.
According to Negm, there are opportunities for Telecom Egypt to maximize the use of its submarine cables depending on the growth coming from African countries if the completion of the construction of fibre optic network to link Africa to Egypt.
