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NTRA's Meeting with The Callers For The Internet Revolution
3/13/2014

Cairo on 10/3/2014

NTRA, headed by Eng. Hisham Elayly, the Executive President, convened yesterday with the callers for and representatives of the 'Internet Revolution' (Eng. Moemn Hani – Eng. Rami Isaac – Eng. Islam Khaled – Eng. Sharif Intisar – Mr. Mohamed Sayed) with the attendance of General Atef Jacob, Head of the Consumer Protection Agency and member of the NTRA's Consumers Rights Protection Committee (CRPC) in addition to some members of the Committee. The meeting dealt with the debate on the most important obstacles and problems facing youth in online services, with regard to the quality of service, prices or customer service provided by ISPs. In addition, the meeting addressed the NTRA's role and the measures it has taken to raise the efficiency of Internet services provided to users. The attendees agreed on the measures taken by the NTRA in this regard. The main output and results of this meeting can be summed up as follows:

  • The NTRA agreed with the ISPs companies to determine and identify the areas that suffer from saturation problems, and draft a short-term plan for the provision of online services therein.
  • NTRA agreed with ISPs to find out technical solutions for urgent saturation problems that some areas suffer from, and compensate the users affected by poor service in case such technical solutions are not devised.
  • NTRA obligated ISPs to develop an application to test the service speed (Speed Test) on their websites to enable the service users to determine and assess the service speeds offered to them. The NTRA will monitor and follow up on the results of this application to resolve any unexpected network congestions and bottlenecks.
  • NTRA is in the process of adoption and provision of a new product in the coming few weeks that enables for the provision of internet services at higher quality level, speeds and affordable price. It will be publicized and circulated within two years throughout the country.
  • NTRA adopted last month a new version of the official contracts of the services. This included the addition of new terms that guarantee the protection of the users' rights in obtaining the services at an appropriate quality.
  • NTRA announced a tender for the First Phase of the National Broadband Project that would be funded by NTRA and would be implemented within the upcoming 18 months so that the internet speed would amount to 20 Mbps. NTRA has been keen to ensure the coverage of some areas throughout the country .
  • NTRA has stated that the offers and prices of Internet services are subject to the NTRA's approval and monitoring. NTRA is developing the controls that regulate the promotions, advertisements and special offers of telecom services to ensure that their purport is clearly- expressed without leaving any room for the customer to be confused by vague or ambiguous meaning.
  • NTRA has purchased hardware and devices to monitor the quality of Internet services provided to users and then publish periodic reports of their results on the NTRA's website.
  • NTRA believes that its future plans and vision necessitate the investment to update the telecom infrastructure in Egypt as the Internet services will be provided at high quality and speeds, in addition to the provision of added services .
  • The NTRA will study the possibility and potential provision of Internet services via satellites (Satellite Internet access) especially in the underserved areas.
  • NTRA has a clear vision and a conspicuous goal that aims to enable Egypt to become a global Internet hub, taking advantage of its unique geographic location.
  • Within the framework of the NTRA's keenness to ensure ISPs  high concern for customers service and young users' complaints concerning poor quality of service, a meeting will be held next week between the representatives of the 'Internet Revolution' and ISPs with the attendance of NTRA's representatives.
  • NTRA agreed with the young users (the representatives of the 'Internet Revolution') to communicate with it on a regular basis to transfer the users' opinions concerning the internet issues and problems that they might encounter and to agree on the solutions they would reach to satisfy the users. In this regard the NTRA suggested that the Internet Revolution representatives would nominate a representative thereof to join the CRPC affiliated to NTRA that convenes monthly. This ensures the NTRA's constant communication with the youth and exertion of all efforts to solve the issues and problems that hinder telecommunications services provision.

NTRA calls on the users of Internet services to kindly communicate with it by dialing Call Center hotline 155, and in case the problems that arose concerning the provided services have not been resolved satisfactorily by ISPs, the NTRA will contact with the companies and ISPs in order to find out solutions and resolve any complaints, taking all necessary action to ensure the protection of users' rights.