A Rising Sun
Aside the Nile River
Egypt’s first HSPA network attracted 1 million subscribers in 50 days
Covering a territory of more than 1 million
square kilometers across Asia and Africa,
Egypt, a big developing country with
74 million people, is a ligament between
Asia and Africa. In recent years, the country
witnessed a quick growth in the mobile
telecoms industry. As of May 2007, there
were 22.1 million mobile subscribers in
Egypt with 30% mobile penetration rate.
The annual growth rate is now running
at 36.5%. Such numbers implied a huge
potential in Egypt.
To enhance healthy development of
Egypt’s mobile telecoms industry, the
Egyptian government initiated a public
bidding for the country’s third mobile
communications service licence in June
2006. Etisalat ended up winning it and
paid 16.7 billion Egyptian pounds (US$2.9
billion), eight times more than the base
price. The highly competitive bidding
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worldwide in Egypt’s telecoms market.
An Egyptian Dream of Etisalat
In the Middle East and North Africa
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Once being the only mobile communications
carrier in the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), which has a mobile penetration
rate of 130%, the highest among all
countries in the Middle East. In the global
telecom industry, Etisalat is widely recog-
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East in 2004. In June 2007, Etisalat took
the lead again by completing the largest
high-speed packet access (HSPA) network
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domination in the domestic market, Etisalat
has gradually shifted its focus to the
overseas market and has conducted successful
operations in many countries. With
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carriers in the Middle East.
Etisalat has been showing strong interests
in the prosperous telecom industry in
Egypt. With rich experiences in run-
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improving the communications experiences
of Egyptians.
After winning the bidding for the
licence in July 2006, Etisalat made a complete
plan for building an HSPA network
and providing services with the Misr
brand name.
The Etisalat Misr network, which covers
85% of the territory of Egypt and 60
million people, became a dream project
for communications equipment vendors
throughout the world immediately after it
was announced. Almost all mainstream
mobile equipment vendors joined in the
project bidding. While Etisalat was competing
for the mobile operations licence,
Huawei helped the carrier in network
and business planning and offered strong
technical supports, which turned out to be
positive forces that helped Etisalat win.
When Etisalat prepared for network constructions,
Huawei provided a competitive
network construction scheme and solution.
With localised delivery capabilities
and an end-to-end solution, Huawei could
quickly deploy the network, reducing the
total cost of ownership (TCO) and network
time-to-market. Moreover, the innovative
solution led to outstanding network
performance, which laid a solid foundation
for the success of Etisalat. All these efforts
impressed Etisalat.
In October 2006, Etisalat announced
that Huawei was selected to construct
the Etisalat Misr network, which in-
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UMTS terrestrial radio access networks
(UTRAN) with a total capacity of 10,000
carrier frequencies.
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Successfully Launches
For the Etisalat Misr network, which
covers the whole of Egypt, a good equipment
supplier was merely a preliminary
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acquisition, engineering implementation,
equipment installation, network
optimisation and network maintenance.
Being a newcomer in the Egyptian
telecoms market, Etisalat was faced with
many challenges. In the highly competitive
market where two existing carriers
attracted 300,000 new subscribers each
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