Egypt's second largest data carrier Etisalat has announced it is implementing a new strategy to push forward on its market share in the country. At a press conference on Wednesday, the Mohamed Omran said that his company has enabled Egypt's mobile data market. The company is relatively new to the telecom market in Egypt, only being licensed as the third mobile operator in 2007, but has quickly positioned itself as an industry leader. “Etisalat is in a unique position in Egypt because they have a lot of liquidity to put into investment of sectors other mobile operators have somewhat shied away from until recently,” said Reda Ahmed, a consultant for Etisalat. He believes that through the data plans, the company can continue to grow quickly “and massively.” Omran agrees, saying, “four years ago in 2007 when we got a license in Egypt there was basically very little mobile data. Today, Etisalat has more than 30 terabyte per day in Egypt alone,” he said. It is part of the company's efforts to invest across the region, Omran said. Etisalat is the United Arab Emirate's largest telecom operator and said it plans to invest $15 billion over the next five years in countries across the Middle East “I think fibre [optics] is the backbone for this new media, to connect the customer with the right speed,” Omran said. “That is why we have invested heavily in fibre, and we continue…not only in UAE, but also in Saudi Arabia and other markets as well.” Etisalat also plans to roll out IPTV over the next few weeks, he said. “We want to be the first to adopt IPTV [Internet Protocol Television] on a large scale,” he said. “There will a lot of gaming, high definition and the like. “LTE, or Long Term Evolution, which brings high speed broadband connectivity everywhere, is still at an early stage, but we have decided to be among the early adapters,” he said, adding that the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the first two countries where etisalat aims to provide the service. LTE will give customers, with plans to expand into Egypt in the near future, up to 150 megabytes per second. “We can see how cost is going down and speed is going up,” he said. BM
