The fire at the Ramses Telephone Exchange began on the seventh floor, in a server room, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Amr Talaat, told Parliament in an emergency session on Tuesday.
The room was equipped with smoke detectors, which triggered an alarm and prompted staff to respond. However, the fire spread quickly through cable conduits carrying electrical current and data.
“Unfortunately, the server was connected to a set of cables that carried electrical current and data through conduits, which allowed the fire to spread rapidly through them,” Talaat said.
He added that staff were unable to contain the fire and called Civil Defense forces for assistance. Fire crews arrived at around 5:30 p.m., but the network of conduits helped accelerate the spread of the blaze.
Responding to questions about the fire suppression system, Talaat said it had activated but was not strong enough to put out the fire.
He described the Ramses Central building as a key node in a national telecommunications network, and acknowledged that while services were affected, the wider network remained operational.
Addressing public criticism, Talaat said the internet continued to function under increased traffic, adding that those voicing concerns were doing so via the same network.
He said contingency Plan C had been activated to reroute traffic through other parts of the infrastructure. This involved technical procedures that began as soon as it became clear the Ramses exchange would not return to service on Monday.
An emergency restoration schedule was implemented, beginning with services for ambulances, police, and fire departments, followed by banking systems, data carriers, and then local neighborhoods reliant on Ramses Central.
Talaat noted that Telecom Egypt controls 80 percent of the market, requiring coordination with other operators and the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.
He said service restoration began with emergency systems, then banking and payment platforms. Mobile wallet performance, the InstaPay service, and credit card operations across all banks had improved, he said, and voice and data services between the four mobile networks had been restored.
The remaining service disruptions affect the area around the Ramses exchange. Talaat said this required deploying external equipment near the building—currently inaccessible—to reroute services, particularly through the Fawalah Central between Gomhoreya and Mohamed Farid streets.
Restoration in that area, he said, would begin with key institutions such as the Central Bank of Egypt and the National Bank of Egypt.
“Once we are allowed to enter the building, we will begin a thorough technical investigation to understand the causes and ensure such an incident does not happen again,” he said.
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