CAIRO (Sept 22): Egypt said it will consider auctioning its fourth-generation (4G) licences on the international market after all three of the country's existing mobile phone operators turned down an offer to acquire them. It gave the four companies already operating in Egypt priority, but the only taker was Telecom Egypt, the state fixed-line monopoly which needs the 4G licence to enter the mobile market directly for the first time. The established mobile operators, Vodafone Egypt, Orange Egypt and Etisalat, rejected the deal, saying the terms on offer were not viable. Vodafone Egypt said it had rejected the licence because it did not offer enough spectrum to operate 4G services properly. Telecom Egypt was alone in acquiring its 4G licence for 7.08 billion Egyptian pounds (US$797 million) last month.

Source: The Edge Markets September 22, 2016 15:33 UTC