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Board gives initial OK to acquisition of 4G licence, telco says it will need a year from obtaining licence to roll out services.
Telecom Egypt’s board has given preliminary approval to the acquisition of a 4G mobile licence, paving the way for it to launch mobile services in its own right in the next 12 months or thereabouts.
The fixed-line operator on Sunday issued an Arabic language statement via the Egyptian stock exchange covering decisions made by its directors last week.
According to Reuters, that statement explains that the board gave its initial approval to the telco’s 4G plan, and that the plan will now be passed on to its investment committee.
The newswire also quoted an unnamed company official as saying that Telecom Egypt will launch 4G services within a year of obtaining the licence, giving it time to appoint staff to manage its mobile services, ready networks and broker other agreements.
Egypt’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority is negotiating with the country’s three existing mobile operators and with Telecom Egypt regarding the prices they will pay for 4G licences and – in the case of the mobile players – licences to provide fixed-line services.
Orange in June revealed that it has been asked to pay 3.54 billion Egyptian pounds (€352 million) for a 4G licence, as well as EGP100 million for a fixed-line licence, and EGP1.8 billion for an international calls licence.
Prices for the various licences are not the same for each operator though, varying based on market position. The market’s other operators have not shared what their bills are likely to be.
However, last month Reuters reported that Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Egypt were both in talks with banks with a view to securing loans of EGP5 billion each to cover the cost of their licences.
