Vodafone Egypt confirms data services back, forced to send SMS supporting Egyptian government

In a statement released today, Vodafone Egypt confirmed it has been able to reinstate data services in Egypt, enabling customers to access all internet sites.

The company says they actively lobbying to reactivate SMS services as quickly as possible.

Vodafone Egypt also confirmed that Egyptian authorities have used power provisions in the Telecoms Act since the start of the protests to request mobile operators to send SMS to their customers. These messages are not scripted by any of the mobile network operators and the company does not have the ability to respond to the authorities on their content.

Under the emergency powers provisions of the Telecoms Act, the Egyptian authorities can instruct the mobile networks of Mobinil, Etisalat and Vodafone to send messages to the people of Egypt.

Vodafone Group has protested to the authorities that the current situation regarding these messages is unacceptable, making it clear that all messages should be transparent and clearly attributable to the originator, which doesn't seem to be the case.