How well-positioned is Telecom Egypt to capitalise on future opportunities in the global market?
We have established a strong foundation to scale and expand our networks both by sea and land, positioning Egypt as an attractive hub for the global subsea cable community. Over the past five years alone, we have facilitated 10 subsea cable landings, including for 2Africa, Africa-1, IEX, PEACE and the Red Sea Festoon.
Beyond our extensive global subsea network, we connect the Red Sea and Mediterranean with over 10 diverse trans-Egypt terrestrial crossing routes, supported by five landing stations on each coast. This infrastructure is further strengthened by ongoing development of our new projects in the Sinai Peninsula, creating a resilient network mesh that seamlessly integrates with global subsea systems.
As part of these developments in Sinai, we are deploying state-of-the-art landing stations and expanded routes via an integrated network of terrestrial and subsea links to strengthen the critical Asia-Africa digital corridor. These interconnect with both existing and newly deployed infrastructure to ensure seamless connectivity.
The result is a platform for real digital transformation, enabling us to meet hyperscalers’ growing demands in the region. With these robust foundations, Egypt serves as a hub supporting the development of AI, IoT, the cloud and other next-generation services.
How important are partnerships to improving network reach and services?
At Telecom Egypt, partnerships form a cornerstone of our strategy, enabling us to work with key players and shape connectivity worldwide.
On the subsea side, a prime example is our partnership with leading ICT player NaiTel, which creates a vital link to Jordan, while our alliance with Hungarian IT company 4iG establishes a new gateway to Europe via Albania. We’ve further strengthened our network resilience by joining the ICE IV cable consortium to implement an alternative route and new international gateway connecting the Far East, Middle East and beyond.
These collaborative efforts extend to our data centres and cloud services. Through our partnership with Huawei Cloud, for example, we launched Huawei’s first locally based public cloud region in Egypt and North Africa last year. Meanwhile, an alliance with AWS brought a new Amazon CloudFront edge location to Cairo and a collaboration with Colt led to new high-speed internet transit nodes in Egypt.
Furthermore, we recently entered into a partnership with international fibre and subsea infrastructure provider EXA Infrastructure to leverage our WeConnect ecosystem, which delivers protected capacity solutions that streamline subsea connectivity with unprecedented agility.
Each of these partnerships demonstrates our commitment to delivering cutting-edge infrastructure and services through strategic cooperation, enabling us to provide businesses and consumers with scalable, future-ready connectivity solutions that meet evolving market demands.
How is the company addressing challenges like the need for network resilience in the Red Sea and growing demand for route diversity to Europe?
Telecom Egypt is proactively addressing the challenges in the Red Sea by exploring alternative routing solutions. For one, our collaborations with Gulf partners are driving the development of a new high-capacity system across the Arabian Peninsula that innovatively combines subsea and terrestrial segments to maximise redundancy, reliability and connectivity.
Meanwhile, to meet the growing demand for route diversity in the Mediterranean basin and enhance connectivity to Europe, we are expanding entry points into that region and routing transcontinental traffic across 18 diverse Mediterranean routes, reinforcing our commitment to network resilience and expansion.
New European entry points include those being developed in Albania with 4iG and in Greece via Crete with Grid Telecom. Additionally, we are collaborating to connect Medusa, the largest Mediterranean subsea cable, to the Red Sea.
Together, these transformative initiatives reinforce our strategic leadership in global connectivity, solidifying our role as a key enabler of resilient, diversified and future-ready digital infrastructure across the region and beyond.
What key infrastructure moves have driven Telecom Egypt’s global growth?
At Telecom Egypt, we are committed to investing in advanced network technologies and solutions to address the growing demand for robust and high-capacity networks.
As part of our ongoing investments and partnerships, this January we activated a Mediterranean link on the 2Africa subsea cable system in collaboration with Cisco. This high-capacity link between Port Said [Egypt] and Marseille [France] via Genoa [Italy] maximises the potential of our assets on the 2Africa cable and enhances international traffic capacity.
Currently, our network carries over 260Tbps of transit traffic, seamlessly connecting the Far East, Middle East, Africa and Europe while carrying more than 90% of traffic that transits through Egypt between these regions.
Through strategic partnerships with over 170 major subsea cable players across 21 in-service and planned subsea systems, we are continuously reinforcing Egypt’s role as a vital digital gateway for international connectivity.
How is Telecom Egypt addressing growing digital demand domestically?
The explosive growth of bandwidth-intensive applications such as video streaming, online gaming, video conferencing, smart cities and cloud-based services has dramatically increased demand for high-speed, low-latency connectivity. Telecom Egypt is addressing this demand through transformative strategic initiatives focused on modernising digital infrastructure in its home market.
A central focus of these efforts is replacing copper cables with fibre-optic networks. Initially deploying fibre-to-the-curb [FTTC], the company now prioritises fibre-to-the-home [FTTH] for all new connections and is actively upgrading legacy copper last-mile networks to FTTH, achieving 4.4 million homes passed to date. These efforts are supported by parallel expansions in Telecom Egypt’s core, transmission and international networks.
The upgrades have helped drive a 16-fold increase in Egypt’s average fixed broadband speeds in the past seven years, from 5.4Mbps in December 2017 to 84.5Mbps by February 2025, according to network intelligence company Ookla’s Speedtest. As a result, the country now holds the prestigious title of having the fastest fixed internet in Africa, with Telecom Egypt recognised for operating the fastest fixed network in North Africa and the fastest mobile network in Egypt.
How do these initiatives drive digital transformation and address current service gaps for consumers and businesses in Egypt?
These infrastructure investments directly address Egypt’s evolving digital needs while creating tangible value across society.
Telecom Egypt’s nationwide fibre programme aligns with the country’s Digital Egypt vision, achieving 99% FTTC coverage while rapidly expanding FTTH networks. The strategy includes expanding to underserved rural areas via initiatives like the country’s Decent Life project, which aims to connect millions of households to bridge the digital divide and promote digital inclusion.
The increase of around 40% year-on-year in Telecom Egypt’s international internet network capacity, coupled with continuous core and transmission network upgrades, ensures robust service connectivity for both consumers and enterprises.
To meet growing data demand, the company’s operational Tier III-certified RDH 1 facility and RDH 2, scheduled for completion in 2025, leverage Egypt’s geographic advantage and submarine cable infrastructure to position the country as a regional cloud and data hub, reinforcing its role as a global connectivity leader.
Through submarine cable investments, 5G deployment, cloud partnerships and enterprise solutions, Telecom Egypt is systematically eliminating service gaps while enhancing Egypt’s global competitiveness in the digital economy.
These initiatives collectively bridge the urban-rural digital divide, empower businesses with reliable infrastructure and advance the country’s strategic vision of continuing to act as a digital gateway connecting Africa, Asia and Europe.
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