The old black phone used to have its prestigious place in the house, and even its round table in the hallway. Some would make a mobile basket, often with a very long cord attached, to move throughout the house. In popular districts, local Cafes, grocers, or kiosks would provide this service for a fee.
Telecommunication arrived in Egypt in 1854 with the establishment of a telegraph line between Cairo and Alexandria by the British Eastern Telegraph Company, according to Telecom Egypt's official website.
from Ahram Archive collection
from Ahram Archive collection
The First Hello
However, it was not until 1881 that the first telephone line between Cairo and Alexandria was officially launched. By 1883, the phone line had connected the Canal trio cities (Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez) as well as the Zaqaziq, Mansoura, and Tanta delta governorates. However, in 1897, King Fouad I attended the inauguration of the New Medina Telephone station, and the Ericsson Swedish company installed its first telephone exchange in Alexandria 1897.
In 1918, the Egyptian government nationalised the Eastern Telephone Company and turned it into the Telephone and Telegraph Authority. And in 1927, King Fouad I inaugurated the premises of City Central (Exchange) on Ramsis Street (now Queen Nazly Street) and made the first official phone call, using a silver-plated phone handle.
Ramses Exchange: A lifeline of Telecommunications
The old premises of “The New Telephone Home” or Dar Altelfonat Algadida were located on Ramsis Street, but it succumbed to urban development. A new 13-story building rose at the same location in the seventies.
The Ramses Exchange centralised Egypt’s manual telephone exchanges, where operators—mostly women—connected calls using physical plugboards. This allowed for person-to-person voice connections initially within Cairo and eventually across the entire country.
In 1928, Markoni Corporation established two wireless stations in Maadi and Abu Zaabal. By 1952, Egypt had approximately 62,000 landlines. In 1975, Egypt launched the first car wireless service as well as a microwave service connecting Cairo, Alexandria and Al-Salloum.
By 1978, Egypt had established its own Earth Satellite Station in Maadi. In 1985, Egypt had its first fibre optic cable in Cairo, and in 1992, the country launched its internet service for the first time.
Throughout the years, the Ramses Central played a key role in expanding access to telegraph and telephone lines, eventually linking Egypt to global submarine cable networks. Today, the Ramses Exchange not only connects homes and businesses via landline, but also serves as the physical home of the Cairo Internet Exchange (CAIX)—a node that enables data routing between major Egyptian internet service providers.
It is the gateway through which much of the nation’s international digital traffic passes, particularly via submarine fibre-optic cables in the Mediterranean.
The building’s symbolic and technical centrality came into sharp focus once again in July 2025, when a fire broke out on its upper floors.
The incident, which tragically resulted in the deaths of four employees, disrupted services nationwide, revealing just how essential this 20th-century monument still is to Egypt’s 21st-century life.
The current building that made news headlines suffered a tragic fire that resulted in the death of 4 employees and disrupted service nationwide.
1st Telecom Museum
In 2010, Egypt established its first Telecommunication Museum, showcasing all the iconic devices that have shaped a significant portion of our history and many of our childhood memories.
Video tours featured by the Telecommunication Magazine took us on a stroll down memory lane, where a precious moment was captured in print, as Al Lataef Al Mosawara newspaper documented the first phone call connecting Egypt with London in 1932.
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