Egypt’s leading mobile network providers—Vodafone Egypt, Orange Egypt, and Etisalat by e& Egypt—have rerouted their network traffic to alternative switching centers following a fire at the Ramses Central Office in downtown Cairo. The blaze, which affected core telecom infrastructure early Wednesday, triggered emergency responses to maintain service continuity.
Network traffic has been redirected to backup hubs including El Obour and El Hosary switching centers. Operators activated contingency plans to redistribute voice call routing and data services, minimizing service disruption. A senior telecom engineer confirmed that the network load was successfully balanced across other central exchanges, ensuring stability while damage assessments and repairs are underway.
The fire was contained by civil defense teams without injuries. Preliminary investigations suggest an electrical short circuit as the cause, with formal inquiries ongoing. Telecom Egypt, which owns the national fixed-line infrastructure including Ramses exchange, is collaborating with mobile operators for restoration efforts.
Though no official outages were reported, some Greater Cairo users experienced temporary call quality issues and slower data speeds in the morning. Operators have reassured customers that services are normalizing via contingency infrastructure.
Analysts noted the incident underscores the critical importance of resilient digital infrastructure and redundancy planning in telecom networks, praising the quick response and routing flexibility that prevented greater disruption.
Authorities are expected to release a formal report soon. Repair work at Ramses Central Office is in progress, with full restoration projected to take several weeks depending on damage severity.
