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Mada
09-07-2025
- General
- Mada
Ramses fire exposes heavy reliance of private operators on state-owned infrastructure
A fire at Egypt's most critical telecommunications facility this week has caused nationwide network service disruptions. While the government has downplayed the country's dependence on the Ramses Exchange central data center, the scale of the disruption, affecting all public and private network operators nationwide, has drawn censure from critics who point to the degree of national dependence on infrastructure concentrated in a single building complex in cental Cairo. The incident killed four people and left 32 injured while triggering an immediate and widespread internet blackout. The fire, which sent thick smoke billowing over central Cairo for hours, knocked the building out of operation. The shutdown immediately disrupted phone and internet services, emergency hotlines like those for ambulances and the police, ATMs and digital payment systems as well as some air travel operations. Communications Minister Amr Talaat, who visited the site, denied on Tuesday that Egypt relies solely on the Ramses Exchange building for telecommunication services. But the minister also said that affected services had to be redistributed across other data centers in the country, which are now acting as a backup network while repairs on Ramses are underway. No other data center in Egypt matches Ramses' in scale or in the range of functions it performs within the national telecommunications network that extends to all governorates. The exchange building serves as a data center, a storage facility leased by operators, a primary interconnection point between networks and a hub for receiving international calls. While other data centers across Egypt play significant roles within the national grid, with some coming close in terms of function, none rival Ramses. Despite Talaat's assurances, however, that the decline in service connectivity would end in hours, connectivity in Egypt dropped sharply in the aftermath of the fire, with some connectivity still unstable 48 hours later. Data from Netblocks, an independent internet monitoring platform, showed that national connectivity fell to 62 percent of ordinary levels immediately after the fire, before dropping further to just 44 percent the next day. The disruption varied across service providers. Orange was the hardest hit, with connectivity collapsing to just 2 percent of its usual levels, followed by Etisalat operating at 10 percent. Vodafone was less affected at 69 percent, while TE Data, owned by Telecom Egypt, maintained between 82 percent and 91 percent of normal connectivity. The extent of damage to each telecom company during the fire was directly linked to their level of reliance on the data center, according to Mohamed al-Maghraby, an electrical engineer specializing in network security at a private sector company who spoke to Mada Masr. Both Etisalat and Orange depend on the Ramses board for roughly 80 percent of their operations, making them the most severely affected, he said. The physical infrastructure that underpins telecom and internet services, including cable lines, exchanges, data centers and switches, is fully owned by Telecom Egypt — the network provider majority -owned by the government. The infrastructure was built and substantially upgraded by the state, especially over the past decade. Billions of Egyptian pounds were allocated to the Communications Ministry to develop the system, including a major shift from copper cables to fiber optic networks for data transmission. Government investment in the sector has reached LE152 billion over the past ten years. The government bears the full cost of infrastructure investments, while private companies, like Orange, Etisalat and others, lease transmission capacity from it, a former senior official at Telecom Egypt told Mada Masr. Although private operators are allowed to build and expand their own infrastructure according to their needs under the terms of their licenses, they opt to lease from Telecom Egypt because it's far cheaper than building their own, especially under oversight that is marred with flaws, according to the senior official. Private telecom operators entered the market before it was formally regulated, they continued. While private players began operating in the 1990s, a formal legal framework wasn't introduced until 2003, with the passage of the telecommunications regulation law, which established the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) to oversee and regulate the sector. The NTRA does not mandate that service providers build their own infrastructure, nor does it object to companies leasing the infrastructure from another provider. However, it does lay out a set of guidelines meant to ensure the quality and sustainability of services. According to the former senior Telecom Egypt official, companies are expected to lease transmission capacity that exceeds their operational needs — or greater than the number of customers they serve. Beyond this surplus, companies are also expected to maintain an emergency reserve — unused under normal conditions but available during crises of varying degrees. This reserve is meant to act as an immediate backup that ensures continued data transmission and service stability in the event of damage to primary infrastructure. The closer this reserve capacity is to the company's actual regular operating volume, the less damage the company is likely to suffer during a disruption, and the better its service continuity. Maghraby likewise said that there are two levels of contingency planning in the event of network emergencies — the first a standard backup plan, designed to fully absorb common and recurring incidents without noticeably affecting network connectivity. The second, he said, is a disaster recovery plan for rare, large-scale and unpredictable events — the worst-case scenario. In Egypt's case, this would require a full replica of the Ramses data center, mirroring its entire capacity and functionality to take over completely if the original were to fail. However, private providers tend to 'skimp' on leasing the extra or emergency capacity required as backup by the NTRA, the former senior official at Telecom Egypt said. This skimping, or that the NTRA overlooks this requirement, is a regulatory oversight. The source argues that flaws in NTRA oversight lie in a central conflict of interest: while the authority is tasked with regulating the sector on behalf of the state, the government is also an active market player through its majority stake in Telecom Egypt. This dual role makes regulatory enforcement a sensitive matter. Private companies have repeatedly accused the NTRA of favoring the state-owned company and using its supervisory powers to serve the interests of a competitor in the industry instead.
The Herald
08-07-2025
- Health
- The Herald
Blaze at Cairo telecommunications building disrupts communications, injures 22
At least 22 people were injured after a fire broke out on Monday in a key telecom data centre in Cairo, the spokesperson for Egypt's health ministry told Reuters, as disruptions of communications across the capital were recorded. A state TV reporter said it had been contained. People were unable to make phone calls and a major internet disruption was registered after the fire erupted in the building in central Cairo, with internet monitoring group Netblocks saying network data showed national connectivity at 62% of ordinary levels. The health ministry posted alternative numbers for ambulance services across different governorates in case people were unable to reach its main hotline. Besides phone calls, some digital banking services were also impacted, including credit cards, ATM machines and online transactions, a bank source and residents said. Banks had been closed for the day.
Zawya
08-07-2025
- Health
- Zawya
Blaze at Cairo telecommunications building disrupts communications, injures 22
CAIRO: At least 22 people were injured after a fire broke out on Monday in a key telecoms data centre in Cairo, the spokesperson of Egypt's health ministry told Reuters, as disruptions of communications across the capital were recorded. A state TV reporter said it had been contained. People were unable to make phone calls, and a major internet disruption was registered after the fire erupted in the building in central Cairo, with internet monitoring group Netblocks saying network data showed national connectivity at 62% of ordinary levels. The health ministry also posted alternative numbers for ambulance services across different governorates in case people were unable to reach its main hotline. Besides phone calls, some digital banking services were also impacted including credit cards, ATM machines and online transactions, a bank source and residents said. Banks had already been closed for the day. The injuries were mostly because of smoke inhalation, health ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said. "A fire broke out this evening in one of the equipment rooms at the Ramses switchboard of the Telecom Egypt company , which led to a temporary disruption of telecommunications services," the National Telecom Regulatory Authority said in a statement. It said services would be restored over the next few hours, after power to the whole building was cut off as a safety measure. A plume of smoke could be seen above the Ramses district. The state news agency MENA said the fire had been prevented from spreading to the entire building and neighbouring rooftops. An initial examination indicated that the fire was likely to have been caused by an electrical short circuit, MENA cited a security source as saying. (Reporting by Jaidaa Taha and Momen Saeed Atallah in Cairo, Jana Choukeir in Dubai; Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Barbara Lewis, Kevin Liffey, Bill Berkrot and Marguerita Choy)
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Yahoo
Fire at Cairo telecoms center injures 22, disrupts communications
STORY: :: A fire at a major telecom center in Cairo injured at least 22 people and disrupted communications :: Cairo, Egypt :: July 7, 2025 People were unable to make phone calls, and a major internet disruption was registered after the fire erupted in the building in central Cairo, with internet monitoring group Netblocks saying network data showed national connectivity at 62% of ordinary levels. The health ministry also posted alternative numbers for ambulance services across different governorates in case people were unable to reach its main hotline. Besides phone calls, some digital banking services were also impacted including credit cards, ATM machines and online transactions, a bank source and residents said. Banks had already been closed for the day.
BBC News
23-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
BBC Verify Live: What satellite images tell us about damage in Iran
Update: Date: 10:34 BST Title: How we're tracking developments in Iran-Israel conflict Content: Emma PengellyBBC Verify journalist Iranians wave national flags during a demonstration in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday As we've been reporting, overnight on Saturday the US confirmed it had bombed three nuclear sites in Iran in an operation that it says was months in the planning. Among the key outstanding questions are: We'll be monitoring user-generated content appearing on social media and satellite imagery for further developments. After the US attack, Israel and Iran continued to exchange fire on Sunday. In Yazd, central Iran, we verified a video of large explosions. According to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-affiliated Tasnim news agency, nine people were killed in the attack. The amount of footage coming out of Iran remains relatively sparse. BBC journalists are unable to report from inside Iran due to restrictions by the country's government, making it difficult to assess the damage. Also, with internet monitoring organisation Netblocks continuing to report, external an 'internet shutdown' in the country, access to social media videos and images has been very limited. Update: Date: 10:08 BST Title: ICYMI: Satellite images of Iran show craters at Fordo after US bombing Content: Benedict GarmanBBC Verify senior journalist Satellite imagery that we looked at on Sunday shows the aftermath of US strikes on Iran's underground nuclear enrichment facility at Fordo. High-resolution images from Maxar Technologies taken 22 June show six craters - likely the entry points for US munitions - as well as grey dust and debris scattered down the mountainside caused by the strikes. We previously wrote about the type of "bunker buster" munitions required for a strike on a deep underground facility like this: a bomb called a Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). On Sunday, the Pentagon confirmed they were used as part of its operation. Senior imagery analyst at McKenzie Intelligence Services, Stu Ray, told BBC Verify: "You will not see a huge blast effect at the entry point as it is not designed to detonate on entry but deeper down into the facility." He added that it looks like three separate munitions were dropped on two separate impact points, and that the grey colouration on the ground appears to show concrete debris blown out by the explosions. Ray also said the tunnel entrances appear to have been blocked off. As there are no visible craters or impact points near them, he suggests this may have been an Iranian attempt to "mitigate against deliberate targeting of the entrances by aerial bombardment". It's uncertain how much damage the strikes have caused to the nuclear site itself. In the days leading up to the strike, Iran seem to have been taking actions to anticipate them, as we reported earlier. Update: Date: 09:56 BST Title: Monday at BBC Verify Content: Johanna ChisholmBBC Verify Live editor Good morning from the team in the BBC's newsroom in London. You join us more than 24 hours after it was confirmed that the US had carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. This coming more than a week after the conflict between Israel and Iran escalated. We spent Sunday analysing satellite images, which begin to show the damage from those US strikes - we'll bring you more of that in our next few posts. We're continuing to track developments in the Middle East today, as we try to get a clearer picture of how those strikes have impacted Iran's nuclear programme. Our fact-check team is also across the government's new 10-year industrial strategy - which could see energy bills slashed by up to 25% for more than 7,000 UK businesses - and is set to be unveiled later today.
