Telecom Egypt (TE) forecasts have shown that, during the first year, its mobile services subscribers will approach 5 million, around 15% of the company's household subscribers, Telecom Egypt's General Manger for Investors Relations and Internal Reporting Mohamed Kamal told the Daily News Egypt. "We have around 7m households subscribing to our landline services, with an average of 5 people in every house," Kamal added. The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Atef Helmy is expected to activate the unified telecoms licence before 30 June. The unified licence will allow TE, Egypt's sole landline operator, to offer mobile services and become the fourth mobile operator in the country. Vodafone, Etisilat Egypt and the Egyptian Company for Mobile Services Mobinil will be able to offer landline services as well. "The ministry will hold a conference on Wednesday where it's said that the news will be officially announced," Kamal said. The conference was said to take place 26 March but was postponed. An official statement from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology stated that the postponement was "in line with postponing the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) Board of Directors' meeting to Wednesday, 26 March – due to urgent circumstances – to take executive measures for activating the unified license of telecommunications". "The press conference was also postponed due to the fact that some telecommunications companies' leaders were outside Egypt and were, therefore, unable to attend the international conference," the ministerial statement added. In a previous interview with the Daily News Egypt in July, Mohamed El-Nawawy, managing director and CEO of TE, explained that this new service will give the company a good opportunity to grow, adding that it will have a chance to compete in 85% of the market, from which they are currently excluded, with the mobile licence. Mohamed Shamroukh, the company's Chief Finance Officer, stated that the company has been negotiating with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and with the mobile operators in the market. "There's a delay, but we hope that it doesn't exceed July. We have the technical and commercial capabilities that allow us to follow through with what we previously announced through the media, but we're still waiting for the licence," Shamroukh said.
