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Egypt’s Position in Technology and Information Led GlobalizationEfforts are beingmade to encouragemore people to owntelephone lines byreducing installationcosts, the price ofcalls and the‘wait-time’ to getconnected.Figure 5.1 : Number of Telephone Lines in Egypt (1982-2000)864200.541.52.12.51982 1986 1990 1992 1996 1998 2000South SinaiNorth SinaiMatrouhNew ValleyluxorRed SeaAswanQuenaSuhagAssyoutMeniaFayoumBani-SuefIsmailiaBeheraMenoufiaGharbiaKafr El-SheikhKalyoubiaSharkiaDakahliaDamiettaGizaSuezPort SaidAlexandriaCairocommunication, notably in computers, software,mobile telephone posts and the necessaryinfrastructure needed.Is the Digital Gap Narrowing inEgypt?Different indicators have been adopted todescribe the status of the digital divide.Among these are the following:Telephone density. This is calculated bydividing the number of telephone lines bythe number of people. The commonly usedfigure is the number of telephone lines per1,000 inhabitants.Since 1981, telephone lines in Egypt havegrown dramatically, from 510,000 lines inservice in 1981 to over six million lines in2000. Figure (5.1) shows this increaseduring the period 1982-2000. This jumprepresents more than a 1000 per centFigure 5.2 : Egypt: Telephone Density by Governorate (2000)(Telephone Line per 1000 Persons)4.2118.5195.1172.6192.1235.271.534.345.546.137.535.844.6108.343.8 65.77151.7 7756.164.1141 168174.9156.4208.2280.270 120 170 220 270 32020 370 4205.86.6428.2increase. Efforts are being made toencourage more people to own telephonelines by reducing installation costs, the priceof calls and the ‘wait-time’ to get connected.The increase in the number of telephonelines is an indication that the digital dividegap in Egypt is narrowing. Nonetheless,national distribution of lines is uneven.Figure (5.2) shows that the highest densityis in urban areas and South Sinai. However,figures for Luxor and Aswan, which aretourism governorates, could be quite misleadingas telephone density in these areas does notreflect local use. The number of telephonelines also differs from location to location.For example, Giza has more telephone lines(867,096) than Port Said (126,800),although Port Said’s telephone density(256.4) is greater than that of Giza (168).At present, there are more than 6.6 milliontelephone lines distributed across Egypt.This means that there are 104.2 lines forevery 1000 persons. However, data from1998 indicates that the relative position ofEgypt (60 lines) is low when compared tothe Middle East and North Africa (MENA)Region (80 lines), or to the Arab countries(140 lines).Mobile Phones: Other telecommunicationservices have been introduced in Egypt overthe last four years. The Global System forMobiles (GSM) was launched in 1996.Telecom Egypt established the first mobilenetwork, which was later privatized. Asecond mobile concession has been awardedto Misr-Phone to enable competition in thisarea. Since the introduction of the mobilephone, there has been a considerable increasein the number of users. In 1997, the numberof mobile phone users was a little over58,000 users. Following privatization, thenumber had exceeded 1.3 million users bythe year 2000, as shown in Figure (5.3).PC Density. Since having access to a PC is aprerequisite for Internet users, PC densitybecomes another important indicator of thedigital divide. This is measured by dividingthe number of PCs-in-use in a region by thenumber of citizens, although it is somewhatdifficult to calculate the exact number ofPCs in use, given frequent upgrades anddisposal of old computers.80 -Egypt Human Development Report 2000/2001