Acting Executive President at the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA), Mustafa Abdul Wahid, said that the four telecommunication companies have made official requests to obtain new frequency bands to keep pace with the expected growth of 4G users in the coming period. He told Daily News Egypt that the requests are being studied and that the NTRA is coordinating with the sovereign bodies to provide the bands from their end, then, the NTRA will study means of offering them to the companies. Egypt has conducted a live test for using 5G technology during the Cairo ICT 2017 exhibition, which is being held between 3 and 6 December under the auspices of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. The four telecom operators launched 4G services at the end of September. According to the distribution of bands, Orange received 10 MHz for $484m, while Vodafone received 5 MHz for $335m and Etisalat received 10 MHz for $535.5m. Telecom Egypt (TE) has been granted 15 MHz of 4G frequency bands for EGP 5.5bn, in addition to EGP 2.2bn for permits to operate mobile services. The number of mobile users in the Egyptian market has come close to 100 million subscribers, while internet users are 33.2 million, according to April data. The ratio of mobile internet users to the total internet users in Egypt amounted to 3.22%.
