CAIRO: The Egyptian ministry of information technology and telecommunications has revoked the police of “fair use” of the Internet proposed by the country's Internet providers announced this week, saying that the new policy cannot be put on existing subscribers. The minister said in statements to reporters that the new policy “will not affect current Internet subscribers” in Egypt. Minister Tariq Kamel said that the initial decision for the policy was based on suggestions from the country's providers and the National Telecom Regulatory Commission, but has “agreed on it as a two month testing prohibition for new subscribers and that test will be reinstated after two months.” Last week, Egyptian Internet users took the streets following the decision by Internet Service Providers to limit the downloading bandwidth and the capacity of download speeds for household use. A number of Internet activists, social media sites and Internet forums called on Egyptians to boycott the service providers after the decision was made public. The new policy, also dubbed “the policy of equitable downloads†was announced by Internet providers in the country last week. Activists by calling on all citizens to go to the streets in widespread demonstrations against the new restrictions. Others have also threatened sending calls to American and European companies to convince them to open local branches in Egypt to help save the country from what they called “deception†of Internet companies. The social networking website Facebook has already seen the launching of dozens of groups opposing the policy of “fair use.†The online groups have been joined by tens of thousands, most notably the group “we are going to say it out loud, No for limited Internet in Egypt,†which has over 22 thousand followers. Followers in these groups expressed their “dissatisfaction towards the policy of the new internet companies,†pointing out that this policy, which comes at government instruction to regulate communications, would result in a “backward†Egypt. It is unclear exactly when, and if, the proposed restrictions will come into effect. The “fair use†policy will enable users to download only a certain amount per month, and then the company automatically reduces the speed agreed upon and paid by subscribers. For example , if the subscriber has the speed at 512 kb/s, they can download a maximum of 25 GB per month. If the subscriber reaches the maximum speed available per month, the company further reduces the speed of 512 kb/s to 128 kb/s and would charge the user LE 10 ($1.75) pounds for every extra GB downloaded. The activists said “there are principles of revolutions, and these are that users pay for the service they get and that they are not slaves to these companies, also one of the principles are that companies don’t have the right to determine the capacity of download for each line.†BM
