JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Egypt will work together with South Africa in both the private and public sector to provide telecommunications aid to the African continent, announced Hosni Mubarak, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, at the African Telecom ’98 conference in May.
Mubarak was not specific about the type of aid Egypt is willing to provide.
Mubarak had been invited to attend the telecommunications imbizo session of the conference chaired by South African Deputy-President Thabo Mbeki. The term imbizo-a Nguni word meaning “the call”-is used to describe a gathering of the community usually convened by royalty or elders to discuss and solve problems facing the community. The telecommunications imbizo was a collective call and commitment to action for telecommunications development on the continent.
The response to the call was crucial as it could well alter the future of African telecommunications and set the trend, as it is part of the continent’s vision to make Africa an integral part of the global information society. The Egyptian leader answered this call and pledged his support to help the rest of Africa. He was to have delivered the message to the conference via satellite, but the link failed and his speech was read by Egyptian Ambassador to South Africa Moushira Khattab.
He said, “The challenges of telecommunications are daunting, but they are within our grasp. They are beyond the means of anyone of our countries but well within the resources of the nations together. In each of our countries they will require resources that our national budgets cannot bear. But we are developing new structures to meet this challenge.”
It is a challenge that Egypt, which hosted the Africa Telecom event in 1994, is meeting rather well. The South African conference coincided with the launch of Egypt’s first communication satellite Nilesat, a broadcasting and data channel, as well as finalizing the contract for the second GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) cellular license.
The Egyptian GSM cellular market has reached a total of 800,000 subscribers since its launch in 1996. Initially, the Egyptian mobile telephone service was entirely owned by the state. Telecom Egypt’s sale of 20 percent of its shares in the state telephone company paved the way for privatization and strategic alliances.
Two cellular licenses were granted in May for nationwide coverage. The first, which already is operational, comprises the existing GSM network and a consortium of Motorola Inc., Ascom and France Telecom. The second license is an alliance of AirTouch Communications Inc., Vodafone Group plc and the Egyptian company Alkan.
Telecom Egypt Chief Engineer Aida Elshinnawi estimated the networks will carry 1 million subscribers each by the end of the century.
