The Mobile Phones network companies War in Egypt

There are 3 Mobile Phones networks operating in Egypt now

Mobinil

Vodafone Egypt

and lately

Etaslat Egypt

Mobinil is the oldest owned by Egypt's billionaire Naguib Sawiris but it is partly held by famous Orange too ,it is a part of Orascom telecom which owns various Mobile phones networks in several countries whether in Asia like Pakistan or Africa like Algeria and lately in Europe after the purchase of one the biggest Operating networks in Italy and Greece

Then Vodafone , it started as Misrfone then Click then Vodafone , of course it is owned by the great British telecom Vodafone.

Then last year after long time of debate the Telecommunication ministry in Egypt gave the licence to Etaslat of Emirates to establish the third operating Mobile phone network in Egypt ,after long begs from Vodafone and Mobinil not to do this ,but they did.The head of Etaslat Egypt is President Sadaat Son Gamal El-Sadaat

Etaslat supposedly will start operating publicly in the end of the month February in a very tough competitive mode

You see the Market of Mobile phone networks in Egypt ,the service provider , tough one the competition between Vodafone and Mobinil was always the talk of the town ,of course the customer is the winner in such competition but sometimes not ,well in Egypt , the two networks sometimes like to play dirty so from economic point of view the existence of a third network will be in the benefit of the customer

But do we really need a third network or even forth one like the minister of telecommunication hinted despite the fact he also mentioned the disadvantage of this and he is right

Yes there are over 19 million Mobile phone users in Egypt but this number doesn't need another new network ,the only benefit from having a third network is that it will force the two networks to enhance their services with cheaper prices to the customers

anyhow last week during the Cairo ICT fair ,the Egyptian people saw a preview of what it is going to happen when the third network starts operating for customers

A publicity war in Al-Ahram which I think took millions of Egyptian pounds thanks to the ads and promotional reports about the three networks only in four days

For four days complete color pages in Al-Ahram were dedicated on a daily basis during the fair for each network ,to get a page for advertising in Al-Ahram daily newspaper you have to pay a number of 6 digit ,so you can imagine the numbers they spent

Now on those pages there was a war between the three

Already Vodafone and Etasalat have got the licenses of operating the 3G of Mobile Phones in Egypt ,while for some reason Mobinil didn't get ,some say the government didn't want to give it , some say that didn't ask to get and some on

The 3G was the main issue in the fair this Year

Etasalat is so proud that it will provide the service ,same as Vodafone in the their paid pages on the other side Mobinil answered back powerfully in Al-Ahram in its paid page with big Bold font

Mobinil found out that the G3 is not needed in Egypt , it is not  suitable for the Egyptians from the economic point of view and the experience in the countries that operate it showed that it is not economic

Or something like that as I remember,yes the G3 fees is known to be expensive abroad ,and yes the pattern of use for the Egyptians are not that advanced to use the G3

The needs of the customers is the key in which Mobinil made on the basis of its promotion campaign against the two network

Always in the their headlines a frequent use of the words "We understand the Egyptian needs"

And the real Egyptian need , what the average Joe in Egypt needs is a good prices for the service and good service ,this is what the majority wants

Mobinil brought its singers to the fair ,Vodafone got its star Mariam Faras ads everywhere ,and Etasalat brought football players !!

It was like the war of statements and promotion really ,I had so much fun reading the three paid pages to read the indirect attack

By the way I didn't like what Gamal El-Sadaat said from that because of the 3rd network youth will be able to sing Karaoke in Mobil Phone ,I am sorry but I won't change my network because I want sing ,I don't want to sing ,I want a good coverage ,I want good prices ,that what I want !!

del.icio.us tags: Egypt, Cairo ICT, Mobile Phones, IT, Economy, Middle East, Citizen Journalism, Vodafone, Mobinil, Etasalat

Technorati tags: Egypt, Cairo ICT, Mobile Phones, IT, Economy, Middle East, Citizen Journalism, Vodafone, Mobinil, Etasalat