Egypt’s national operator Telecom Egypt will introduce a new tariff structure for fixed line telephone calls placed from private residences and commercial offices starting July 2002. The new system will record all calls placed within Egypt, regardless of distance, as local calls. It also introduces a simplified tariff structure for long-distance billing.
The new system will send out the telephone bills every three months, requiring payment within 40 days. The monthly subscription fee is currently set on five Egyptian pounds for residential phones and 10 Egyptian pounds for commercial phones. Telecom Egypt worked out the new tariff structure in an effort to ensure the same phone charges are collected throughout the country.
Telephone tariffs in Egypt have not been revised since 1988. The tariff for long-distance calls was calculated based on a multi-meter system and the duration of the call placed, ranging from 45 seconds to three minutes, within villages and cities of the same governorate. The long-distance billing system that formerly comprised 11 categories now comprises only two categories—under 60 kilometers and over 60 kilometers of distance.
Telecom Egypt was established 1918 as the Egyptian Telegraph and Telephone Administration. The company offers a wide range of telecommunication products for personal, residential, business, corporate and Internet, using underground or submarine cables in addition to satellite as different type of transmission media. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
