Quirks and Hints
If tourist, or resident on the run, here is a hotspot site that lists a few hundred cafe's and other locations where you can connect. Likely the site listing is not complete, but is a good reference for a start. In short, the larger chains of coffee shops etc. have hotspots, e.g. Cilantro, Beano's, Chilis, and many more. Finding a place to sit down, have a drink and connect, should be pretty easy anywhere in popular sites of Cairo, and other larger centers. The tourist areas should also not be a problem, and think all good hotels will have wifi access.
If planning to be a newbie resident, some things to consider.
1) On the bright side, maybe some person renting before you may have already done the leg work, and grief, and had the hardware for ADSL installed then it is fairly straight forward - or maybe not.
2) More normally and regardless of anything else, the property must have a working land line, preferably with international line access. If not, do not accept any promises from landlord or agent, reject the place and move on. Update - also beware some working lines have fiber optic connection and ADSL cannot be connected. Do'nt ask me why not as I do not know. Be sure and check directly with ADSL provider first if a new rental and ADSL is really important to you.
3) If you are single and traveling alot, you may wish to consider using a potable modem and get a line for internet from mobile telephone providers as Vodafone (3G) (little box for home wireless, or USB for travelling), or Etisalat 3.5G or Mobinil. You will no doubt have a mobile phone in Egypt so you can get the portable USB modem as well. You need a land line number to get this service, for reasons beyond my comprehension. (Rules change all the time but be prepared for this question). Getting set up with mobil phone providers is easy, and quicker, but speeds are slower and usually more expensive than ADSL. Update - for details of 3G service providers packages check this great blog.
4) ADSL and getting connected. First, a bit of information below from Wikipedia. See full article here LINK
"In April 2008 ADSL2+ was introduced in Egypt at speeds up to 24mbit, now most ISPs capped all the unlimited ADSL offering to a quota between 100GB and 150GB per month calling it a Fair Usage Policy, all speeds from 256k/64k up to 24mbit are capped to up to 150gb per month, ISPs stated that the 150GB quota was huge and users can download up to 60 large movies, 10000 large songs, browse endlessly and send up to 2 million emails a month, most users are divided upon this capping especially those who are heavy P2P users, going above the monthly quota would result in throttling speed of 64kbit/s for the rest of the month.
Most ISPs even though capping to 100-150GB a month still claim the offers as Unlimited, also nobody had any idea about the Fair Usage Policy, 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 when it's in fact otherwise possibly in fear of customers cancelling their subscription at the thought of being capped, unfortunately there isn't much honesty to be found in any ISP in Egypt, the service however has improved dramatically as of late in terms of performance during the whole 2007 till now (April 2008).
There are numerous (220 according to regulatory authority numbers) ISP's in Egypt offering ADSL service although only four companies own the infrastructure and they are called class A ISP's (Egynet, Link.net, TE Data, and NOL) which sell to class B ISP's which are 8 major companies which furthermore sells to the rest of the 208 ISP. It is worth mentioning that broadband Internet in Egypt for the home user is still at a very poor level of service mainly due to the communication infrastructure and poorly connected phone lines. (As a update note: if you wish to connect to ADSL, living in Maadi/Digla area you can use Mahmoud Abdellah phone 0112647110. Mahmoud is independent IT fellow, and great guy I know and respect personally, and he can take the pain out of getting connected to TEDATA, whom I use and lately no problems and about 0.1% downtime.
The point here is why consider to deal with any company other than the class A providers as listed above in bold.
OK now the question which one to try?
On the forum-
Nile on Line (NOL) seems to be getting hot raves now. NOL I think web site sucks and no real info.
Tedata seems to have gone to pits but some users still OK and support it Tedata Good web site and you can see the prices for various packages on over and they admit they support Fair Use Policy but do not state cap!
Link.net - general consensus sucks
Strangely - no geeks comment about Egynet so why bother.
Egypt Internet History
I've been here long enough to have experienced all the quirks of internet connections since time it was introduced. A quick history.
Early days one went to an internet internet provider, made a contract, paid the money, and had given phone number to connected via modem / telephone line. It was very slow and I can recall speeds of 7 kbps.
Next step is government decided there was more business out there and set up the internet free dial up numbers. The service was not free at all as they had a fee for each minute you used the internet and added that to your telephone bill. I can recall getting some high phone bills.
Then came ISDN - I tried it but really was not worth the effort and grief I went through to connect. I was one of the first to install it. Also during this connection we had problem of having internet working but not phone. And nobody was at fault, and blaming everyone and everything else. Excuses and statements like the phone line is not good etc. etc. we finally got a government telephone guy over (bribe of course) and walla problem was fixed very quickly.
Then finally came ADSL and of course was one of first to get it installed. First grief was canceling the ISDN. Egypt telecon had set it up, but to cancel it and get ASDL took and act of providence.
Now the ADSL hook-up. Well I researched all and found one company that actually had a good website, and could pay online. Then was told had to run separate wire from where telephone entered house to where I wanted the ethernet connection - this was all way around the building - up one floor, through wall and finally against floor board to desk top computer locations. I bought my own splitter and router as wanted main desktop connect via ethernet and other 3 computers via wireless. (Yup even dog has a computer but no fights with wifey and kids about who's on next). Finally got it up and running after waiting 2 more weeks for the service to start. No one informed me when service was working I just kept looking at router for the 4 green lights. In mean time had to continue to use telephone "free" numbers.
Have had grief since with slow speeds, and again phone stopped working while internet was OK. I have a 2 meg/512 line but actual maximum download speeds using torrents is 200 kbps, but it does this fairly consistent although there are times when one can tell bandwidth is clogged, or some other problem ,as speed will drop. Last time I renewed, I got a phone call from some creep saying he was coming over to collect the money like I was his servant. I asked him if he was with the internet company and he said yes. I said send me my invoice by email and I will pay online as I always did. Creep was dumb founded by all this and kept insisting he had to come and collect cash. I have the general managers phone number for the company and let him know this was not acceptable. I got an email with invoice quickly, and can pay online though reputable company, so that was solved. Let me step back one minute. I also tried to upgrade to 4 meg just to try it out. Was told no problem but nothing happened. So asked again and was told they could not as technical problem. That was bullshit so said I paid for 4 meg and he said Oh ya, I will refund the difference. Like I would not find out! Also I have been surprised at how many people do not know how to access their router? If you don't know find out!
One other hitch with providers in Egypt is if you want to cancel you need a "cancellation notice" and some say this might take weeks if not longer so your stuck with internet (except dial-up) until you get this. Like being held for ransom.
You can read about internet provider problems at the forum site below. There is quite a volume of talk but I picked out a reasonable start page so you can work up from there. One common thread is "support services are staffed by morons".
Egypt ISP Users Comments - mostly Irate People
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