Two of the world’s leading telecommunications companies, Orange and Vodafone, have made major announcements in the regional press about planned undertakings in Egypt’s New Administrative Capital.
Firstly, Orange has confirmed plans (mentioned here in February) to build a new $135 million data centre in Egypt’s new administrative capital. The new facility will host all the smart city platforms of the new city. The new capital city lies just east of Cairo.
Orange is responsible for the new capital’s services management centre for five years. The company aims to start the trial operation of the centre early next year.
The Data Centre Dynamics website says that Orange is due to open the first phase of another data centre – in the Al-Awayd area of Alexandria – soon. It also operates a data centre in Cairo.
The Administrative Capital for Urban Development (ACUD), a state-backed company and the new capital’s owner and developer, is contracting Orange’s regional subsidiary, Orange Egypt.
Also widely reported locally has been news that Vodafone Egypt is in negotiations with the country’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) regarding the possibility of undertaking 5G trials in the New Administrative Capital.
There’s little supporting detail available as yet, though Daily News Egypt noted that proposals in this area ‘are currently being studied technically with NTRA regulators’, though it was stressed that the two parties were ‘still in the process of studying and exchanging ideas’.
Connecting the new capital is not likely to be a simple or low-cost undertaking. We reported in September 2019 that Egypt’s communications ministry was planning to begin work on what was then estimated to be a $2.44 billion telecommunications network in the first phase of the new capital city.