On Sunday, Vice President of Telecom Egypt Mohamed Abu Taleb had said in a phone interview with Amr Adib on MBC Misr Al-Hekayah, that the company is in the process of shifting its landlines customers to a prepaid plan, but did not specify a timetable for the completion of the process.

Under the outgoing billing system, customers pay a basic fixed bill of EGP 70 every three months in addition to cost of calls and minutes.

Under the new prepaid payment system, customers will prepay a quarterly subscription ranging from EGP 69 to EGP 232 on various limited plans.

Customers who exceed the limit on their packages would be only able to receive calls for a certain period and would have to recharge their subscriptions in order to avoid seeing their lines suspended, according to Telecom Egypt website.

Telecom Egypt has started applying the new prepaid system to all new landlines customers in January and migrating existing landlines customers to the new system in March, expalined the company in its email.

To date, Telecom Egypt has migrated two million customers - out of a total of 11 million customers - to the new prepaid system, according to the email.

The new prepaid system will allow customers to have a greater control over their payment and consumption patterns, Telecom Egypt said.

“Customers can manage all aspects of their own accounts via the various digital channels, which include monitoring their consumption, recharging their balance, and renewing their package,” the company stressed.

The new system “is a step towards integrating all our services as customers are now able to access all their, mobile, fixed broadband, and fixed voice accounts in the same manner,” Telecom Egypt concluded.