Mobile service via satellite in Cairo

Egyptian approved yesterday on permitting Iridium ME company to provide mobile telephone services via satellite for 10 years.

The company is to pay duties of not less than $10,000 annually for the authorization, beside the imposed duties for using wireless mobile and portable apparatuses.

Two Egyptian companies are working in the area of ordinary mobile phone services, Mobinil and Misr Phone, which will start service at the end of the current month.

Mobinil company had bought the infrastructure of the government's mobile network within the context of the privatization of the Egyptian communications sector, which began this year and is expected to finish at the end of 1999.