A month-long disruption to internet services provided by state-run Telecom Egypt (WE) was caused by a system upgrade and a malfunctioning server, a company source told Al Manassa on Monday. The source admitted to hundreds of customer complaints and said full service would resume within days.
The unnamed official said the outage began after recent infrastructure updates collided with a central server failure, affecting customers across multiple governorates. Users reported a range of problems including complete internet blackouts, drastically reduced speeds, and data packages mysteriously vanishing before month's end.
This is not the first time Egypt's primary telecom provider has experienced prolonged failures. On July 7, a massive fire erupted at the 11-story Ramses Exchange building in downtown Cairo, gutting essential fiber-optic cables and servers. The blaze disrupted internet and phone services across wide swathes of the capital.
Then, in October, the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) announced planned maintenance to relocate fiber-optic cables near the Grand Egyptian Museum. The work was expected to cause "limited and temporary" outages, though users in surrounding areas reported broader disruptions.
Hundreds of complaints poured in over the past 30 days, particularly from residents in Minya, Sohag, and Menoufiya governorates, revealed the official to Al Manassa. Many reported degraded connections and unexplained depletion of their monthly data plans.
"Some users filed complaints with the NTRA and the Consumer Protection Agency earlier this month," the source added. "Both regulators requested updates, and the company submitted status reports on ongoing repairs and system updates."
This is not an isolated case. In 2024, the NTRA fined Telecom Egypt 20 million Egyptian pounds following a nationwide outage caused by infrastructure collapse. The regulator also ordered the company to compensate affected customers after an emergency review panel confirmed widespread failures in both voice and internet services.
