Egypt to pay operators for service disruption

Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology will pay domestic mobile-phone operators 100 million Egyptian pounds ($16.8 million) in compensation for the disruption of services during the revolution earlier this year, a spokesman has said. "The 100 million "Egyptian pounds" will go to mobile operators and Internet providers," the ministry's spokesman told Zawya Dow Jones. The Egyptian Co. For Mobile Services, or Mobinil, Egypt's largest mobile operator by number of subscribers, in February said damages caused by political events in Egypt were valued between 80 million Egyptian pounds and 100 million Egyptian pounds. Internet service providers, or ISPs, in Egypt said in late February that they would compensate subscribers for the interruption of services between Jan. 28 to Feb. 2 when political turmoil escalated in the country. The Egyptian government restored domestic Internet services on Feb. 2 after a weeklong shutdown aimed at making it harder for demonstrators to organize protests. Mobile voice services were also disrupted in Egypt on Jan. 28, before President Hosni Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, putting an end to his 30-year regime.