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By Pan Tao & Chen Qing

Mobinil was the first operator to reach 20 million subscribers in North Africa. They plan on staying ahead of the competition pack in Egypt by offering more top-quality and innovative telecom services to subscribers. 

With Egypt' s population exceeding 80 millions and three wireless operators, Mobinil is currently the market leader already claiming 23 million subscribers. 

Instead of complacency, Mobinil is targeting a base of 25 million subscribers by the second half of 2009. Orascom Telecom and France Telecom are the two major shareholders of Mobinil. 


Taking the initiative 

Mobinil is a trusted brand with loyal users and by the end of 2008, the Mobinil subscriber base accounted for 47.6% of the Egyptian telecom market. 

In 2007, two more telecom giants, Vodafone and Etisalat, obtained 3G licenses and commercially deployed 3G services. The two operators reinforced their promotion efforts by building their images as pioneers in the 3G field. This perked the interest of a large number of subscribers and Mobinil took a note of the advanced 3G technology. 

As the ARPU is decreasing annually and competition intensifies, Mobinil decided to build a 3G network covering all the residential areas in 226 cities and villages across Egypt. Mobinil is hoping to strengthen its leading position and continue to enhance its brand image by offering superior data services. 


Deploying a high-quality network 

After the large-scale successful deployments of Huawei' s 3G access network across the globe in 2007, Mobinil decided to learn more about the Huawei technology and soon invited Huawei to deploy a 3G network in the Greater Cairo Region (GCR). 

The GCR crosses the Nile and consists of Cairo, Giza, and Al Qalyubiyah. This key region has 40% of Egypt' s population and is one of the political, economic, and business centers in the Middle East. 

First, Huawei used distributed BTSs in the deployment of the 3G network across the GCR area to reduce power consumption and optimize the operation cost. 

Mobinil made full use of existing resources like equipment rooms, towers, and power supplies to accelerate network deployment. Distributed BTSs were installed in existing equipment rooms saving space and using the existing network power system. Distributed BTSs are not only cost-effective, but tower-mounted BTSs can also increase the antenna output power. 

Moreover, the Huawei project team solved every issue in network rollout phase and in a very short time the 3G network started to operate. 

Facing stiff competition in the Egyptian 3G market, Mobinil urgently requested innovative solutions, better network performance, and ultra fast response time to gain subscribers and that is what Huawei has continued to offer. 

Given the excellent equipment performance, stable network quality, and rapid response from Huawei, Mobinil transferred all construction of the 3G network across the North Coast of Egypt from other equipment vendors to Huawei at the end of 2008. 

During the hot summers, many government officials, celebrities and rich business people spend their holidays at the North Coast of Egypt, so the network needed to be one of first-class quality and high reliability. 


unparalleled holiday experience 

Along the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, there are many beautiful Egyptian beaches which made the area at the top of the summer getaway destinations. Many government officials and society elites have their houses and villas over there. During the summer season, they bring their families for a holiday, usually staying for two or three months. 

Around 15% of the telecom services in the GCR transfer to the North Coast at that time. These people are mostly high-end telecom subscribers and require high-quality data services. The original 2G network in this area fell far behind these subscribers' needs for data services. 

By May 2009, Huawei had successfully deployed the 3G network across the North Coast of Egypt. So, this year, during the hottest season from June to August, subscribers enjoyed 3G services including Internet surfing and mobile TV. 

"During this period, the North Coast has witnessed a tremendous 3G traffic growth. North Coast traffic accounted for 20% of the total 3G data traffic, which clearly indicates the existing demand for broadband connection," said Mr. Yasser Shaker, Director, Network Engineering & Development Technology, Mobinil. 

"Initially, Mobinil decided to launch its 3G network to boost its technology brand and re-instate its image as the market leader. Today the concept has been shifted, with the huge data traffic growth, a new revenue stream has been identified and its result is expected to reach unparalleled horizons. Based on this, Mobinil is planning to launch diversified mobile broadband services which will stimulate the growing subscriber base data usage," said Mr. Marwan Hayek, Vice President, Technology, Mobinil. 

"Mobinil' s strategy is to maintain its position in the Egyptian market as the leading operator in mobile services. This is the strategy on which we have based our decisions, and according to the results that we have seen so far, we are confident that we are on the right track," commented Mr. Hassan Kabbani, CEO of Mobinil.




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