The report on the performance of Egypt’s network providers, prepared by the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA), covered 81 cities and districts.

Egypt’s oldest telecom company, Orange, exhibited poor performance in 44 areas regarding the quality of calls and data services.

Meanwhile, Vodafone Egypt, Etisalat, and WE performed poorly in the quality of calls and data services in 28, 32, and 33 areas, respectively.

Vodafone’s performance improved from July to September in terms of the ability to make phone calls in the 81 cities, with areas of bad network coverage decreasing from 19 to four.

Areas where phone calls could not be made through Etisalat, Orange, and WE increased in September to nine, 24, and 33, respectively, according to the report.

In terms of incomplete calls, Vodafone did not demonstrate poor performance in the 81 cities in September, while Orange, WE, and Etisalat showed lacking performance in four, eight, and 13 areas, respectively.

Both Vodafone and WE showed improvement in the average data download speed between July and September, reaching 27 megabytes per second.

Orange and WE maintained a stabilised average data download speed of 25 megabytes per second.

Vodafone, however, came in last at the minimum download speed index with four megabytes and five megabytes per second in July and September, respectively.

On the other hand, WE, Orange, and Etisalat maintained a minimum download speed of seven, six, and six megabytes, respectively, the NTRA said.

Five megabytes per second is the minimum accepted download speed, the authority added.

The authority has enforced several measures to raise the quality of services provided, including fining telecommunication companies EGP 25 billion for violating phone service quality standards in accordance with the licences they have been granted, it said.

The measures also include establishing 641 new mobile stations in the third quarter of 2021 to provide 500 villages with 4G network services, said the report.

The NTRA receives complaints about telecommunication companies in case they fail to resolve customers’ problems at [email protected].

Minister of Communication Amr Talaat said on Sunday that the ICT sector has become the fastest-growing state sector, achieving a growth rate of 16 percent and contributing to the gross domestic product by five percent.

The NTRA report recorded a significant increase in mobile internet usage in Egypt, with the average monthly consumption rising by 150 percent between September 2020 and September 2021.

Internet surfing increased by 60 percent, social media platforms usage rose by 16 percent, and streaming entertaining content increased by 37 percent, according to the report.

The report recorded a rise in the use of search engines via mobile internet by 29 percent, chats by 163 percent, online games by 20 percent, and remote online meetings by 21 percent.

Online marketing via mobile networks increased by 59 percent, and the use of email and web mapping platforms rose by 63 and 146 percent, respectively.

Watching entertainment clips on online apps, including TikTok and Likee, increased by 733 percent in one year and live video broadcasting increased by 278 percent.