CAIRO - Egypt is unlikely to offer a second fixed-line telephone licence or a fourth mobile phone licence before 2013, Egypt's telecommunications minister said in remarks published by the daily al-Mal on Sunday.
"Offering a second fixed-line licence in the local market in the coming period has lost its economic merit in light of the drop in the number of fixed line users currently," Tarek Kamel told the newspaper.
Egypt, a country of 78 million people, has one fixed-line operator, state-owned Telecom Egypt (ETEL.CA) , and three mobile operators: Mobinil (EMOB.CA), Vodafone Egypt (VOD.L) and Etisalat Egypt (ETEL.AD).
