Cairo – Mubasher: Vodafone - Egypt said its board of directors decided to drawback from obtaining the fourth-generation (4G) service licenses offered by the government at its current conditions.
Vodafone believes that the conditions of the licenses do not consider neither the Egyptian citizen interest nor the potential growth of the Egyptian telecom sector, according to a press statement.
In the same vein, Orange said it would decline to buy the 4G licenses for the same reasons that stated by Vodafone.
Orange noted that it is willing to participate on condition of amending the licenses terms by the regulators.
The deadline for Vodafone, Orange, and Etisalat to apply for the licence was set to 22 September.
The mobile companies have requested to extend the deadline and to pay the licence value in instalments, given that 50% needs to be paid in US dollars. However, the Minister of Communications and Information Technology rejected both requests, according to an official in the NTRA,
NTRA has set the prices for the 4G frequencies at EGP 3.5bn for both Vodafone and Orange, EGP 4.5bn for Etisalat Misr, and EGP 5.5bn for Telecom Egypt (TE). The authority decided that 50% of the value should be paid in US dollars. There is an additional cost to be paid for offering the 4G services, which will be paid independently from the license’s value
