CAIRO: Egypt’s social platforms were raided by calls to boycott mobile networks for five hours on Thursday, causing a state of anxiety for telecommunication and internet companies and Communication Ministry of, Youm7 reported.
“Internet Revolution” is the movement created on Facebook and launched the boycotting campaign. It aims to burden the telecommunication companies with highest losses, in order to enforce them to lower the prices and improve the quality of their services.
photo courtesy of “Internet Revolution” Facebook page uploaded by people supporting the boycotting campaign.
Sources told Youm7 that Minister of Communication Khaled Negm held a meeting Thursday with the executive manager of the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) to discuss the initiatives launched to widespread the broadband internet services.
The Internet Revolution page has so far 963,000 supporting persons who started to post pictures from all over Egypt for their mobile phones without the SIM cards, encouraging all to stand as a one man to encounter the abuse.
photo courtesy of “Internet Revolution” Facebook page uploaded by people supporting the boycotting campaign.
“Negm is calling for reducing internet prices by 50 percent and on doubling its bandwidth speed,” sources told Youm7.
Egypt’s three telecommunication operators; Mobinil, Vodafone and Etisalat, are currently focusing on offering high-quality, low-price services, inside sources told Youm7.
The sources added that the biggest loss will be burdened by Telecom Egypt company, especially that the mobile pre-paid card subscribers are paying in advance.
Meanwhile, Telecom Egypt published a statement supporting the boycott requirements of Internet revolution saying that the company had filed similar requirements before, more than once, but it was disapproved by the ministry.
photo courtesy of “Internet Revolution” Facebook page uploaded by people supporting the boycotting campaign.
#million man boycotting telecommunication companies, in Arabic, became a trend on Twitter, witnessed a large number of people supporting by tweets and photos of their phones off and SIMs out.
On the other hand, communication sector excluded the possibility that this campaign could succeed, pointing that there are 95 million used SIM cards and 50 million internet users, including the mobile data or the landline internet, sources told Youm7.
photo courtesy of “Internet Revolution” Facebook page uploaded by people supporting the boycotting campaign.
Sources added that people are always getting themselves busy by phones and internet even during the family gatherings or watching T.V; besides, calls volume during Ramadan day is normally lower than the normal days.