Egypt is launching a new mobile service for users to obtain bills and court information through their mobile phone handsets. Egypt's Minister of Administrative Development Ashraf Abdel Wahab said the new service would be rolled out throughout this week. The service, which will be carried out with the cooperation of Egypt's three telecom service providers Mobinil, Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Egypt, is already covering inquiries from citizens over their water and electricity bills, the ministry said. The minister added that there are improvements on the ministry's Facebook page “to make a hub for informational services.” He added that the page is currently acting as the ministry's official statement platform, however once the new website development is complete, it will buttress the ministry's ability to deliver information to Egyptian citizens. Ahmed Rateb, a securities analyst in Cairo, said he was unsure if the new services would be immediately beneficial to the country's 80 million people initially. “We don't have many people with smart phones in the country yet, but in the near future it will likely be a nice jumping off point for customers who want to have these services,” he said. BM
