The Internet is accessible to the majority of the population in Egypt, whether via smartphones, internet cafes, or home connections. Broadband Internet access via VDSL and FTTH is widely available.
Under the rule of Hosni Mubarak, Internet censorship and surveillance were severe, culminating in a brief total shutdown of the Internet in Egypt during the 2011 Revolution. Although Internet access was soon quickly restored following Mubarak's order that year, government censorship and surveillance later increased years later following the overthrow in 2013 of Mohamed Morsi, leading the American NGO Freedom House to downgrade Egypt's Internet freedom rating from "partly free" in 2011 to "not free" in 2015, which the country has retained in subsequent reports, including the most recent in 2025. Under the presidency of Morsi's successor Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the ruling government has ramped up online censorship in Egypt. The government heavily censors online news websites, which has prompted the closure of many independent news outlets in Egypt.
Penetration Egypt's internet penetration rate grew from less than one percent in 2000, to 5% in 2004, 24% in 2009,"Estimated Internet Users 2000 to 2009" , International Telecommunication Union (ITU), spreadsheet, accessed 12 June 2011 54.6% in 2014, 71.9% in 2022, and 81.9% in early 2025. Egypt has continued to grow internet penetration by investing in the information and communications technology sector, spending in 2008 which grew to in 2011. This article incorporates text from this source, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
As part of the Egyptian government's ambitious program to expand access to information technology, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), Egyptian National Post Organization, and the Computer and Software Department at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce signed an agreement to spread personal computers for every home in August 2008. The agreement is the second phase of a 2002 initiative and is part of the MCIT's strategy of increasing computer use throughout Egypt, focusing on socio-economically disadvantaged communities. The initiative includes offering discounts on computers and 512 kbit/s ADSL subscriptions for three years.
Almost a million Egyptian households have broadband access due to sharing VDSL lines. Of these, 63.4% share the connection with their neighbors; 81.9% of households that share lines share them with more than three other households. Egypt had more than 400,000 ADSL lines by the end of 2007, 75% of which were residential. More than one-fourth of Egyptian Internet users visit Internet cafés to get online.
Broadband access Broadband Internet access was introduced commercially to Egypt in 2000 as an asymmetric digital subscriber line. The service was offered in select central offices in big cities such as Cairo and Alexandria and gradually spread to cover more governorates of Egypt. There are numerous (220 according to regulatory authority numbers) Internet service providers in Egypt offering an ADSL service. Seven companies own the infrastructure, known as class A ISPs: (Egynet, LINKdotNET, TE Data,TE Data 2011 - The Fastest Internet Network in Egypt (ISP) NOL, Vodafone data, Noor communication and Yalla). Etisalat Egypt bought both NileOnli and Egynet to expand their Internet presence. They sell to class B ISPs which, in turn, one-fourth sell to the rest of the 208 ISPs.
Broadband connections in Egypt vary in quality. Quality depends on the distance from the central loop office, the presence of ISP in that local loop, and the quality of the copper telephone line carrying the broadband connection. Internationally, Egypt is currently served with three international submarine cables: namely, FLAG, SEA-ME-WE 3 and SEA-ME-WE 4. However, following the mass information blackout of early 2008, with the announcement of Telecom Egypt owned cable TE North and Orascom telecom owned MENA, several other projects are planned to improve the resilience of the international broadband to make sure users internet connect do not go faulty.
Internet exchange points Egypt has two Internet exchange points: Cairo Regional Internet Exchange (CR-IX) and Middle East Internet Exchange, the former carrying international, as well as domestic, services. Reports related to the 2011 Internet shutdown in Egypt refer to the "Ramses Exchange" as the location where the shutdown was affected. The Ramses Exchange is the main "wire center" for Telecom Egypt, carrying not only municipal telecommunications traffic, but also serving as the main point of entry for international submarine fiber-optic circuits, back-hauled from landing stations near Alexandria. The Ramses Exchange is also the location of the CR-IX, the largest Internet exchange in North Africa or the Middle East.
Fair usage policy debate
Ministerial statement The Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Tarek Kamel, said in the July 2007 news that the ADSL would be turned from Unlimited to Limited with a Quota at a starting price of for the 256k/64k and a 2 GB limit for the download and so on. The widespread use of local line sharing limited ISPs' subscribers' fiber-optic and increased the network's traffic burden. However, almost all the ADSL users, especially the students and users of unlimited ADSL, refused the offer. Most users had concluded that if this plan were to be imposed, they would cancel their subscriptions because they wanted the Internet to be unlimited.
The plan was to start the limited ADSL Packages on 1 September 2007. However, it turned out that Tarek Kamel was to aim specific offerings at different price ranges for other individuals unable to subscribe to an unlimited package. As such, the unlimited packages remained as is and are available through all major ISPs with no changes in price, while the limited ADSL price ranges are now discounted, with the existing unlimited policies having no fair usage policy, except for ADSL2+.
Introduction of ADSL2+ In April 2008, ADSL2+ was introduced in Egypt at speeds up to 24 mbit. Now, most ISPs have capped all the unlimited ADSL offerings to a quota of between 100 GB and 200 GB per month, calling it a Fair usage policy. All speeds from 1 mbit/256k up to 24 mbit are capped to up to 200 GB per month. ISPs stated that the 200 GB quota was huge, and users could download up to 60 large movies, 10,000 large songs, browse endlessly and send up to 2 million emails a month. Most users are divided upon this cap, especially heavy P2P users. Going above the monthly quota would result in throttling down to unworkable speeds starting from at the highest 512 kbit/s to potentially far lower depending on the service provider and region for the rest of the month.
Introduction of VDSL2 On 21 May 2015, it introduced the VDSL service with speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s. This has been applied in the area of Madinaty as the first step to experiencing this new technology, which intends to popularize the country
Alternative offer There is an alternative offer from 512k to 24 mbit, ranging from 2 GB a month to 200 GB a month as a fair usage coverage with reduced prices to encourage low-range users to uptake of broadband.
Confusion about capping Most ISPs, even though they are capped to 40-150 GB a month, still claim the offers as unlimited. Also, companies use vague and inconclusive responses about the Fair Usage Policy and its implementation of different packages. The ISP's websites got the FUP in English and placed in hard-to-navigate places, plus most of the technical support and representatives are denying that any FUP is in place, which is felt by the end-user to be in place, possibly in fear of customers canceling their subscriptions at the thought of being capped.
Performance improvement The service improved dramatically between 2007 and late 2009 due to the heavy investment of all parties involved in the provision of Internet infrastructure. According to NTRA, the total international bandwidth at the end of 2009 was 90458 MB and the number of ports was 970557. This is a dramatic increase from the first quarter of 2009 of only 16,995 MB. This means that the bandwidth made available to customers with telecommunication infrastructure had greatly increased.
2008 marine cable damage On 30 January 2008, Internet service in Egypt and the Middle East was affected by the breakage of two marine cables, FLAG and SMW4, which connect Egypt to the worldwide Internet. TE Data users were not disconnected from the Internet since the company had a third international gateway to the Internet, namely SMW3; however, they suffered from reduced bandwidth until the issue was resolved. The local National Telecom Authority issued a decision for all ISPs to offer a free-of-charge month to all clients to compensate for the reduced quality of service during the outage.
Censorship Although the Internet in Egypt was not directly censored under the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, his regime kept watch on the most critical bloggers and regularly arrested them. Censorship at a technological level during that time was mainly in the form of optional filters offered by Egyptian ISPs to block pornography; TE Data offers Internet services with content controls that filter "all of the Internet's indecent content that might affect your children.""Family Internet" , TE Data, accessed 12 June 2011
In August 2009 the OpenNet Initiative reported finding no evidence of Internet filtering in Egypt in any of the four areas it monitors (political, social, conflict/security, and Internet tools).ONI Country Profile: Egypt , OpenNet Initiative, 6 August 2009 Using data and information gathered during 2010, the status of Internet freedom in Egypt was classified as "Partly Free" in Freedom on the Net 2011 by Freedom House."Country Report: Egypt" , Freedom on the Net 2011, Freedom House, 15 April 2011
The outcome of the 2011 Egyptian revolution was initially interpreted as a chance to establish greater freedom of expression in Egypt, especially online. Reflecting these dramatic changes and opportunities in Egypt, in March 2011 Reporters Without Borders moved Egypt from its "Internet Enemies" list to its countries "under surveillance" list."Countries under surveillance: Egypt" , Reporters Without Borders, March 2011
In March 2012, Reporters Without Borders reported:
Censorship prior to 2011 In 2005, Egyptian authorities continued to both encourage and place restrictions on Internet use. For example, Egypt's Ministry of Interior ordered Internet café managers and owners to record their customers' names and ID numbers in February. It threatened to close the cafés if they refused to comply. The Cairo-based Arabic Network condemned this action for Human Rights Information, which described it as "a gross violation of the right to privacy.""Egypt: Increasing Curb over Internet Usage Harassments against Net Cafés Should Immediately End" , Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, 23 February 2005 In August 2008, authorities increased the level of surveillance by demanding that Internet café customers provide their names, email addresses, and phone numbers to receive a text message on their smartphones containing a PIN that they can use to access the Internet."Egypt demanding data from cyber cafés users: NGO" , Agence France-Presse (AFP), Cairo, 9 August 2008