Egypt Invests $2 Billion to Raise Internet Efficiency- Minister

Amr Talaat, Minister of Communications and Information Technology said that the data center industry is a major component of building a digital Egypt, as $2 billion has been invested to raise the efficiency of the Internet, making Egypt the fastest in Africa in the fixed Internet.

Talaat pointed out that the third phase of the implementation of the fixed Internet development project aims to increase the speed of the Internet, expand the network and increase the number of beneficiaries in the cities and countryside.

This came in his speech during the opening of the 4th session of the Future of Data Centers Summit, in the presence of the ambassadors of Rwanda and Uganda and the Deputy Ambassador of Sudan to Egypt.

Talaat added that a frequency spectrum has been offered to mobile companies, and work is currently underway to increase the number of mobile towers at the level of the republic. He stressed that within the framework of the implementation of the Digital Egypt Network project, 18,000 government buildings were connected to the fiber-optic network out of a total of 33,000 government buildings to provide government services provided to citizens in a digital format.

A project is also being implemented to extend the fiber-optic network to the villages of the Good Life Initiative, with the aim of providing high-speed Internet services to more than 3.5 million homes in more than 4,500 villages within the three phases of the initiative, he said.

The Minister of Communications reviewed efforts to strengthen the international information infrastructure; where the landing stations on the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts were increased from 6 landing stations to 10, and 10 new paths were created between the two coasts to ensure the continuity of the network that transmits data between east to west.

Talaat added that the implementation of a project was completed to establish an information path parallel to the Al-Murshideen Road to transfer data between the East and the West, as well as the start of work on the two submarine cables 2AFRICA and SEA-ME-WE-6 to transfer the interconnection traffic between East and West, which will enter service in 2024 and 2025.

"The HARP system will wraps around the African continent to provide Internet services to various countries of the eastern and western African coasts, and from them to the landlocked countries of the continent."

Tarek Shabaka, Chief Executive Officer at Mideast Communication Systems-MCS, which is organizing the work of the Giant Data Center Industry Future Summit said that the summit succeeded in achieving one of its most important goals, which is to attract the attention of international companies to the status and strength of the Egyptian market and its promising future.

Finally, Talaat witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Institute of Information Technology and MCS with the aim of launching a joint training program to prepare specialized cadres in the fields of cybersecurity and data centers.