Over 5 million people heeded to calls to boycott Egypt's mobile operators, a campaign founder told Aswat Masriya on Friday, pledging to launch a second call on Saturday titled "down with our networks"."Between five to eight million people participated in the campaign," said Ahmed Abdelnaby, citing "sources inside the mobile companies."
Karim al-Fishawy of Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said "we cannot measure the impact of the boycott calls yet." The government authority does not work during the weekend and the impact can only be measured by Sunday, he said.
Abdelnaby said Egypt's mobile service operators, Etisalat, Mobinil, and Vodafone Egypt "did not expect this level of participation."
Head of Vodafone Egypt's Public Relations department Noha Saad said that her company "had no comment" regarding this campaign.
On Thursday, a virtual movement called "Internet Revolution Egypt" launched calls to boycott Egypt's three mobile service providers from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m to protest "poor quality" and high prices.
Mobile subscriptions in Egypt in March reached 95.99 million, according to a report by the ministry of communication.
"A lot of media people and public figures also voiced support for the campaign, including Television host Moataz al-Demerdash, footballer Mohamed Abu Treika and Islamic Cleric Khaled al-Gindy," Abdelnaby said.
The campaign was "not a one time thing", he said, vowing to keep the campaign going "until [they] restore [their] rights".
