The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) will be amending licences as of 20 February to enable Internet service providers (classes A and B) to obtain international bandwidth, a government official said yesterday.
Following the opening of the 10th Cairo ICT forum, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Tareq Kamel added that the licence amendment was a bid to restructure the broadband system. The NTRA will be offering two international licences on 1 March for international call services to expand incoming and outgoing telecommunication traffic, Kamel added.
The above measures will be carried out in two phases, the minister said.
During the first phase (2006 to mid-2008), the two licences will allow the new companies to operate international gateways based on the infrastructure provided by Telecom Egypt (TE). Companies will be permitted to build their own infrastructure during the second phase.
"These two initiatives are a bid to liberalise the telecommunication sector in Egypt in line with WTO agreements," Kamel told an audience of CEOs and managers of the biggest ICT operators in Egypt and the Middle East.
A tender for the third mobile server's licence will be announced next week, when Egypt will be taking part in the GSM conference in Barcelona on 15 February, Kamel disclosed.
Kamel, who launched the Computer For Every Family initiative, said the Information Technology and Development Agency (ITDA) had granted four licences for e-signatures. "The new e-signature licences will help the local community in boosting e-commerce," Kamel said.
Some 450 international and Arab ICT companies are taking part in the Cairo ICT conference and exhibition, which is open until Wednesday. Mohamed Omran, chairman of Ettisalat of the United Arab Emirates, was awarded by Kamel as an IT leader in the Arab region.
Source: The Egyptian Gazette
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