Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Telecom Egypt, and Sweden’s Ericsson recently signed two cooperation agreements valued at over 400 million euros ($348 million) to expand the development of communication and information technology (IT) activities in Egypt, confirmed a press release. Completion of the expansion is set for 2007.
The first agreement, signed between the Ministry and Ericsson with spending totaling 200 million euros, aims at the transfer of technology and investment in services within the country. The establishment of regional software development centers, Internet mobile technical support systems and multimedia and mobile phone networks are part of the cooperation scheme.
Within the scope of the cooperation, Ericsson will invest another 200 million euros into MCIT's plans for the development of the local IT industry, and for local as well as regional human resources development.
The second agreement, concluded between Telecom Egypt and Ericsson, aims at the transfer of technology and modernization of the network, through the implementation of the phase two for the development of the telecommunications infrastructure of Telecom Egypt and the installation of high-speed networks for the transmission of voice, image and data, and fiber optic networks.
Ericsson won on a deal worth $26 million to expand the mobile telephone network in Bahrain in October 2001. The contract stipulates the expansion of Bahrain’s telecom company Batelco’s GSM to accommodate 80,000 additional users, bringing the total number of users to 400,000. The deal included the construction of two gateway-switching centers and 15 new radio base stations and the modernization of the network to adapt it to the GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and third generation (3G) mobile telephones. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
