Egypt's National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) said the telecommunication services usage and Internet consumption have remarkably increased, witnessing high traffic in March and April due to the coronavirus outbreak measures that forced the majority of Egyptians to stay at home. The NTRA issued a comparison between telecom service indicators in the second week of April and those in the second week of March. According to the report, international voice calls increased by 15 percent and local voice calls by three percent. The report recorded an increase in home Internet usage by 87 percent and in mobile Internet usage by 18 percent. Web browsing went up by 131 percent. The number of peak hours for the use of Internet services and applications doubled to 15 hours per day, from 12pm to 3am, during the second week of April, up from seven hours during the second week of March. According to the NTRA report, the usage of video applications such as TikTok, Netflix, and YouTube witnessed marked growth by 194, 69, 41 percent, respectively. The usage of Shahid [an Arabic platform that provides VOD service in the Middle East] increased by 40 percent. The usage of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp applications has increased by 151, 59, and 34 percent, respectively. The rate of online game applications used on the Internet increased by 96 percent. The rate of browsing the websites of the ministries education and technical education and higher education and scientific research saw a surge of 376.4 percent in the second week of April on the same period in March. The NTRA added that it has been coordinating closely with the four service operators to follow up on and monitor the increase in telecom service usage indicators daily to handle contingent increases in a way that does not affect the quality of services provided to the public.
