How Ramses telecom centre fire exposed Egypt's digital vulnerability

Middle East Eye

2 days ago

A blaze at Cairo's vital Ramses Exchange crippled telecom, banking and transport systems across Egypt, exposing how years of centralisation and opaque governance have left the country's digital backbone critically exposed.
On Monday, 7 July, at around 4pm Cairo local time (2pm GMT), a fire broke out on the upper floors of Ramses data centre in downtown Cairo - a building underpinning much of Egypt's digital connectivity.
Minutes later, mobile networks went down. Internet connectivity in at least 20 of Egypt's 27 provinces vanished or became almost inaccessible. Banking apps and payment terminals ceased to function. Emergency hotlines and flight operations were disrupted. For hours, the digital infrastructure of the Arab world's most populous nation malfunctioned.
The following day, the government announced that the facility had gone out of service. The fire killed four employees inside the building and injured at least 27 others, including firefighters. The deaths and ensuing chaos reignited scrutiny of safety standards at critical sites.
On Thursday evening, just after firefighters had extinguished the blaze, a smaller fire reignited on the upper floor, catching everyone by surprise.
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In the aftermath of the incident, Communications and Information Technology Minister Amr Talaat claimed that emergency services were unaffected. But the fact-checking platform Saheeh Masr proved otherwise: ambulance, police and fire hotlines were all down in multiple provinces.
Meanwhile, life in the capital - as well as in Giza, Alexandria and other major provinces - came to a standstill until later the next day.
The financial technology sector took a heavy blow. Mobile payment platforms collapsed, ATMs froze and card machines in shops stopped working. The National Bank of Egypt and Banque Misr issued official apologies to their clients.
People watch as firefighters extinguish a blaze at the telephone exchange and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology building in central Cairo on 7 July 2025 (AFP)
Thousands of Egyptians without enough cash on hand could not fuel their vehicles, pay at restaurants, or use ride-hailing apps. Others were unable to withdraw money from ATMs or transfer funds. Even parents trying to contact their children in day care were cut off.
Later that evening and into the night, the Ministry of Civil Aviation confirmed that airport systems had been disrupted, resulting in delays to 69 flights. Egypt's stock exchange suspended trading the following day.
Middle East Eye spoke with experts and technology activists who shed light on the scale of the crisis, but requested anonymity due to safety concerns.
'This was not just a glitch. It was a national crisis,' said one communications security expert. 'A single strike on one building paralysed a nation's infrastructure.'
Answers demanded
As with many fires over the past decades, even before an investigation was launched - and while firefighters were still battling the blaze - officials were quick to pin the incident on 'an electrical short circuit'.
However, the fallout quickly reached the lower house of parliament, where lawmakers called for accountability.
MP Maha Abdel Nasser described the incident as a 'technological stroke' that froze public services. She filed an urgent inquiry with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, warning of 'immense damage' to governance and public trust.
Another MP, Freddy Elbaiady, submitted a similar inquiry, but was ironically unable to send it electronically as the parliament's portal was down.
'This is not about a fire,' he told local media outlets. 'It's about a national system built around one outdated switchboard.'
The Ramses facility is not an ordinary node. Built in 1927 under King Fuad I, it originally served as the national hub for telegraph exchange and telephone services.
Over time, the centre evolved into Egypt's communications hub, now hosting the Cairo Internet Exchange, inter-operator routing systems and submarine cable landings that connect the country to the global web.
'This is not about a fire. It's about a national system built around one outdated switchboard'
- Freddy Elbaiady, MP
Despite the communications ministry's claim that Ramses is not the sole hub, metrics suggest otherwise. A public update on X confirmed that network data show national connectivity in Egypt at 62 percent of ordinary levels amid the fire.
Masaar, a technology rights foundation, published a research paper on the day following the fire, concluding that the outage seemed immediate and impacted several internet service providers simultaneously - evidence of the Ramses centre's pivotal role in routing internet traffic across the country.
The Cairo-based foundation confirmed Egypt's over-reliance on a centralised and outdated telecom infrastructure, where a single incident can trigger sweeping nationwide disruption.
Masaar further warned that unless serious investment is made to modernise and diversify the country's digital infrastructure, future disruptions - whether caused by natural disasters, technical failure or cyber-attacks - will remain a real and recurring threat to both state institutions and daily life.
'It is the heart of the whole system. If it stops beating, the body collapses,' a former engineer at the state-owned operator, Telecom Egypt (rebranded as WE), told MEE.
Foreseeable outcome
Though the fire's cause may have been accidental, telecom analysts argue that the outcome was foreseeable.
Experts say basic safeguards - such as failover routes, decentralised data centres and automated recovery protocols - were either missing or ineffective.
'This was a preventable collapse,' said a Cairo-based telecom consultant. 'No critical facility should be a 'single point of failure'. Egypt's billions in digital transformation mean nothing without redundancy.'
Technically, a single point of failure is a component that, if it fails, brings down the entire system. It is a critical flaw when no backups or contingency systems are in place.
For decades, Egypt's government has been known for tightening its grip on communications services. During the January 2011 uprising, Ramses Exchange reportedly served as the command post for communications blackout and surveillance on activists reportedly ordered by security agencies.
In the early hours of 28 January, dubbed 'the Friday of Fury', Egypt's mobile networks and internet services were entirely cut off. Data routing was pulled from global gateways, as later confirmed by organisations such as the OpenNet Initiative.
Although Egypt's telecom sector has been officially liberalised, it remains tightly state-controlled.
'This was a preventable collapse'
- Telecom consultant
'Telecom Egypt, which is majority-owned by the state, dominates fixed-line infrastructure and leases the backbone to other operators,' an independent telecom consultant said.
'The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), which is meant to be independent, is structurally tied to the incumbent ministry,' he added.
The World Bank's 2020 Digital Economy Report highlighted this clash of interests, noting: 'The NTRA's dual role as regulator and policy executor creates a high risk of bias… in favour of Telecom Egypt.'
The communications minister confirmed in press statements that 'all services have been transferred to alternative centres', but critics argue this confirms that services were centralised at Ramses before the fire.
By Wednesday, services had been gradually restored within two days after the incident, but trust remains damaged. Lawmakers have called for transparency amid calls for telecom reform, while the government continues to insist it was an isolated event.
Amid such demands, no senior official has accepted responsibility to date. The government has yet to issue a damage assessment or announce a mitigation plan.
'Millions in lost transactions, stock market halts and offline commerce - that's the fallout,' a digital rights advocate argued 'But without transparency, we'll never know the true impact.'