18 June 2021

Egypt’s telecom regulator sanctioned five major operators a total of E£20.65m or US$1.3m, for breaching the mobile number portability regulations.

The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) fined the incumbent operator Telecom Egypt E£3.9m, Etisalat Misr E£3.95m, Orange Egypt E£5.8m and Vodafone Egypt E£7m.

NTRA said the violations “were mainly related to the unjustified rejection of MNP requests, the unavailability of response to MNP requests within 24 hours from the date of investigation, or the non-activation of the number on the operator’s network after MNP”.

For the regulator, MNP was introduced to guarantee users high-quality services and the penalty imposed on telecom operators reflects the efforts made to ensure that users exercise their rights in the user-operator relationship.

Sanctioning operators is part of a series of measures taken recently by the telecom regulator to improve the quality of services offered to the public, including the introduction of a new mechanism to measure the time taken to resolve user complaints from the moment they are submitted to the operator.

NTRA said it wants to accentuate operators’ responsibility in the telecom market. By ensuring that they constantly improve the quality of their services, the watchdog wants to guarantee the population a very high-quality telecom experience.

The authority added that it is working on improving the communication services provided to users on an ongoing basis and will not hesitate to ensure that telecommunications users obtain their rights.

It also aims to maintain a balance between users and mobile companies. The NTRA’s number transfer system aims to ensure the user’s freedom in choosing a network that best suits their needs,