Minister Considers Plan to Make Internet Faster and Cheaper

It is no secret that Egyptians pay entirely too much for slow speed internet access. However, a boost in speed and decrease in price may be on the horizon as the “Internet Revolution” movement was granted a meeting on Monday with the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Khaled Negm, about making changes to Internet services in the Egyptian market.

In February 2014, a growing number of frustrated internet users started a campaign on Facebook calling for “internet revolution”. A year later this group's demands are finally being heard - Minister of Communications and Information Technology decided to sit and discuss their proposals for Internet change.

Mustafa Ahmed, one of the movement’s members, tells Daily News Egypt that they prepared a list of the suggested prices for the service that is similar to other countries. The list also takes into consideration individuals’ income in Egypt and the country’s economic status. The proposed plan submitted starts from 30 LE for the 2MB, 50 LE for 4MB, and 90 LE for 8MB. Once the plan of replacing copper cables for the faster fibre optic cables is complete, the Internet Revolution suggest the high speed access begin at 120 LE for 10MB, 190 LE for 20MB, 250 LE for 50MB and 300 LE for 100MB.

The minister demanded last week that companies start applying the 2MB internet speed, acknowledging that the infrastructure that exists can’t reach 20MB yet. The long term hope is that with a complete overhaul of the infrastructure these speeds will be able to reached, but as it stands there is no indication of when they will be able to do this, and whether or not they will be implementing the proposed changes made by the “Internet Revolution”.