Egypt: SIP providers and connecting a number to your PBX

This page continues the general guide to connecting a provider's number to your PBX: that page covers everything that is the same in any country — the two trunk modes, what to ask the carrier, what to enter in the provider form, how to test the connection and what the network must allow. Here — only what is specific to Egypt.

The data was collected on 9–10 September 2026 from carrier websites, the documents and licensee register of the regulator (NTRA) and numbering plan notifications published by the ITU; links are in the "Sources" section.

In short#

• A dedicated PBX is not created for locations in Egypt, and the reason is legal rather than technical. Telecommunication Regulation Law No. 10 of 2003 prohibits providing telecom services and by-passing international telephone calls "by any means whatsoever" without an NTRA licence; the penalty under Article 72 is imprisonment from 6 months to 5 years and a fine of EGP 50,000–500,000, with confiscation of the equipment. A call from an Egyptian number landing on a PBX outside the country falls squarely under that wording.
• There is no lawful counterparty in the country that could hand you a trunk facing outwards. The terms of the internet and VoIP licence (Class A) allow the licensee to provide VoIP only over VPN and only to companies inside Egypt and explicitly forbid it to "transmit voice phone calls internationally or transmit VoIP by using VPN to the A.R.E. or from abroad". This limits the carrier itself — it is not a matter of price negotiation.
• Your own office PBX is lawful, though: the same law requires no licence for a private telecommunication network that does not use radio systems. Hence the only scheme that is technically honest in Egypt — the carrier line terminating on an on-site gateway that registers upstream to your PBX. Have an Egyptian lawyer qualify that scheme: NTRA has published no guidance on it.
• Two carriers publicly sell a SIP trunk for a third-party PBX: Telecom Egypt (WE) — 30 channels and up to 100 numbers, and e& Egypt (Etisalat Misr) — EGP 20,000 a year plus EGP 8,000 setup. Both deliver it over their own link (a VPN sold together with the service at TE, an access network inside a gated community at e&), and neither publishes a public SIP host.
• At e& the service exists inside gated communities only ("Service Is Available Within Gated Communities Only") — a café at an ordinary address in Cairo or Alexandria cannot buy it at all.
• Egyptian ISPs filter SIP by packet contents rather than by port number. Changing the port and switching to TCP does not help; practitioners report that only SIP over TLS on a random port works — while our PBX trunks run over UDP and TCP without TLS.
• International aggregators have virtually no local Egyptian numbers: DIDWW marks local trunking and DIDs for Egypt as "Not available", Twilio states it has no voice enabled numbers in this locale, and Zadarma and HotTelecom have no Egypt pages at all.
• A numbering pitfall. An Egyptian mobile number without the leading zero is 10 digits, while a line is matched by the last seven: 010 1234 5678 and 011 1234 5678 produce the same tail and merge into a single line.

Numbers in Egypt#

The country code is +20, the national prefix is a leading 0, the international prefix is 00. The plan is closed: from abroad the number is dialled without the leading zero — +20 2 XXXX XXXX.

• A mobile number without the leading zero is 10 digits (1X XXXX XXXX) — that is the regulator's official notification to the ITU. The subscriber part of a landline number is 8 digits in Cairo and 7 in some governorates: NTRA publishes no consolidated numbering plan, so confirm the exact length of your number with the carrier.
• Code 15 is now mobile. Until 2017 it was the area code of 10th of Ramadan; the city moved to 55 and 15 went to the Telecom Egypt mobile network. A directory that still calls 015 geographic is out of date.
• No Egyptian carrier publishes the format in which the number arrives in an incoming call. Expect either the national format without the leading zero or E.164; on the first connection look at the SIP trace and create lines to match what actually arrives.
• Codecs are not published either — ask when ordering. We support G.711 a-law/u-law and G.722; a "G.729 only" trunk gives healthy signalling and silence in the handset.
• Short codes. 155 is NTRA's own call centre, printed in the footer of every carrier's website; per public numbering directories the emergency numbers are 122 police, 123 ambulance, 180 fire brigade and 112 from a mobile. The law places the duty to carry emergency calls free of charge on the carrier; they cannot be dialled through our PBX — keep an ordinary phone or a mobile on shift.

Who provides a number with a SIP trunk#

Below are the cards of the two carriers whose trunk for a third-party PBX is a product in its own right. Both issue the parameters only in the provisioning sheet; the full list of questions for the account manager is in What to ask the provider.

Telecom Egypt (WE) — SIP Trunk Service#

The incumbent and the only owner of the country's fixed network: it holds both the fixed telephony licence and its own 015 mobile network. The service in the Business → Voice Services section is worded straight at a third-party PBX: "just connect the PBX system asking for our SIP trunk service, which supports VOIP".

What is included. A 2 Mbit/s VPN link, 30 concurrent channels for sending and receiving and the ability to get up to 100 numbers with free caller ID across the whole circuit; packages of 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 sessions, upgradable and downgradable after financial settlement. The equipment needed for SIP is installed by the carrier for an annual fee added to the subscription. TE does not publish the price — the e& tariff below gives an idea of the order of magnitude.

What to enter in the admin panel (Telephony → "Trunks and connections" → Add provider):

What to arrange with the provider: order a session package and a number range in the name of an Egyptian legal entity → obtain the provisioning sheet (gateway address, credentials or approval of your address) → agree the number format in incoming calls, on which it depends whether routing can tell the call apart → confirm the codec set → ask for the numbers to be pointed at the trunk.

Pitfalls ⚠️

• The trunk lives inside the carrier's VPN. "VPN 2 mega" in the service description is not an option but the delivery method: a cloud PBX physically does not fit into that scheme — you need an on-site gateway.
• No public parameters at all. Neither host, nor port, nor codecs, nor number format are published — the integration can only be planned once the provisioning sheet is in hand. Guessing "typical" values is pointless.
• The minimum package is 5 sessions. For a single venue that is deliberate overspending: the service is designed for an office or a call centre.

Source: Telecom Egypt — SIP Trunk Service — 09.09.2026.

e& Egypt (Etisalat Misr) — SIP Trunk#

Egypt's third mobile operator; the NTRA licensee register credits it with both "telephony service through fixed virtual network" and a licence for access networks inside closed compounds. The product is built on the second licence: the carrier sells its SIP trunk where it has laid its own access network.

The tariff is published: EGP 20,000 + EGP 8,000 setup, 30 concurrent calls, up to 100 fixed dials. Outbound: on-net within e& — 15 piastres per minute, cross-net — 30 piastres, international — EGP 5.25 / 6.15 / 7.65 per zone at peak and EGP 4.05 / 5.25 / 6.00 off peak. Several packages per customer are allowed; prices exclude taxes, and setup and the annual fee are payable in advance. The decisive line in the same tariff: "Service Is Available Within Gated Communities Only".

What to enter in the admin panel

What to arrange with the provider: first check that the venue's address is inside a served gated community — otherwise the conversation ends here → order the package and the numbers → obtain the provisioning sheet → agree the incoming number format and the codecs → ask for the numbers to be pointed at the trunk.

Pitfalls ⚠️

• Geography decides everything. An ordinary address in Cairo, Alexandria or Hurghada will not get the service: it exists only inside compounds covered by the carrier's access network.
• EGP 28,000 up front. Setup and a year of subscription are paid in advance, before a single minute of talk time.
• The same barrier as at TE: the trunk arrives over the carrier's network, not from the internet. The retail e& fixed line (E-Fixed) is a subscriber product and never carries a trunk.

Source: Etisalat Business (e& Egypt) — SIP Trunk tariff — 09.09.2026.

PRI and an on-site gateway#

This is the only scheme that works in Egypt and the one any local integrator will propose. Telecom Egypt sells a separate product, PRI Circuit: a classic E1 — "30 telecommunications sending and receiving channels", up to 100 numbers, lines usable individually, short number and call centre options available, free caller ID, equipment for an annual fee.

The carrier line (an E1 over PRI, or the carrier's own SIP trunk over its own link) terminates on a gateway or a small PBX inside the venue — Yeastar, Grandstream, Patton — and that gateway registers upstream to your PBX like an ordinary subscriber. The carrier's private addressing then stays inside the premises, and what leaves the building is the venue's private-network traffic rather than call transit from a carrier.

What to enter in the admin panel

What to arrange with the provider: nothing beyond ordering the PRI of the required capacity and the number range; on site, plug the E1 into the gateway and configure your PBX address, the credentials and the "E1 ↔ SIP" rules in it.

Pitfalls ⚠️

• The legal qualification must be obtained locally. The voice still leaves the country — to a PBX in the cloud. Formally that is the venue's private-network traffic, but NTRA has published no guidance, so an Egyptian lawyer's opinion is needed before launch.
• The gateway's upstream registration hits the same SIP filtering as everything else: test the venue's link with a live call before buying hardware.
• PRI is being wound down. The carrier is moving customers from PRI to SIP, and a new E1 connection may simply not be offered — ask before ordering equipment.

Source: Telecom Egypt — PRI Circuit — 09.09.2026.

Carrier-hosted telephony, Vodafone and Orange#

The remaining notable players do not provide a number for a third-party PBX — here is what stands behind them:

• Telecom Egypt — Managed IP Telephony and Hosted Call Center. The first replaces the office PBX (you can "start with 1 IP phone per branch", free calls between sites), the second is a call centre from three seats with ACD, IVR, recording and a supervisor. This is the carrier's platform: phones and agents register onto it, and the "Incoming and Outcoming Trunks" in the feature list are its own links to the network, not a trunk facing outwards.
• Vodafone Egypt. The NTRA licensee register does credit it with the right to sell fixed telephony, but the Egyptian business storefront lists only mobile ranges (Red Business, Business Flex, Plus Business, Ready Business), business SMS and "business complexes" — there is no SIP trunk page. The global Vodafone Business site advertises Fixed IP Voice and SIP Trunking, but that is the catalogue of other countries: confirm whether the product exists in Egypt by asking corporate sales.
• Orange Egypt. The full business solutions catalogue (cloud, data centre, DDoS protection, M2M, SMS, connect2work) contains no "SIP trunk" item, and the Fixed Connectivity section is leased lines and SSL VPN, that is, data links. The closest thing to telephony is Virtual IVR: a cloud menu with a greeting, transfers to extensions and voicemail to e-mail — but the call terminates at Orange and the stream cannot be handed to your own PBX over SIP.
• Class A internet providers — WE Data, Vodafone Data, Orange Data, Noor, EgyNet, Nile on line — are not entitled to provide voice services under their licence. Ask them for a link and a static address for the venue, but not for a number.

International providers with Egyptian numbers#

Cards for the popular international providers are already in the catalogue when you add a provider — the server address and mode are filled in for you. What is specific to Egypt:

• DIDWW — the Egypt section exists, but local SIP trunking and local DIDs are marked "Not available": only international call termination to Egypt is offered.
• Twilio — "although we don't have voice enabled numbers in this locale, you can use numbers from over 90 other locales". Only termination is available: Cairo — $0.2016 per minute, mobile — $0.2050.
• Zadarma and HotTelecom have no Egypt pages and do not sell +20 numbers. Telnyx has no Egypt coverage page either; the country appears only as a billing code.
• AVOXI — sells toll-free and mobile numbers for Egypt; "having an in-country address is not a requirement", though the documentation may include a Letter of Intent and Company Registration. Delivery over SIP to your own PBX is supported.
• CommPeak — claims four number types for Egypt (local, non-geographic, toll-free, mobile) routed "via SIP … to your PBX"; prices and the exact documentation requirements are not published, only a general note that some regions require identity verification.
• AstraQom — an international reseller listing Egyptian numbers among 117 countries: Starter / Corporate / Deluxe plans at USD 24 / 37 / 67 a month (1–2 lines, 50–250 included minutes), USD 6.50 setup, "typical activation is 1–3 business days in Egypt", numbers needing local KYC take longer. The host, port, transport and codecs are not published on the site — they are issued in the portal after activation, together with the username and password for the provider form.
• ⚠️ Beware "local Cairo DIDs" from small resellers. 99CloudTech, PBX.IM and the like promise numbers in Cairo, Alexandria and Giza, "100 % compatibility with Asterisk, FreePBX, 3CX" and 1 to 100+ channels — and quote not a single technical parameter, while the NTRA licensee register does not list them at all. The contrast is decisive: the large aggregators openly say they have no local Egyptian numbers. A number that goes on your signage and menu should not come from a seller who cannot explain where it comes from.
• A caveat for all of them. Even once a +20 number is bought, incoming calls leave the country towards your PBX — exactly the international transmission that Law 10/2003 describes as by-passing. An international provider solves the technical problem and not the legal one.

Number porting#

• Mobile number portability works and is fast: the regulator has cut the deadline to one day, and the new rules are written precisely for switching operators within 24 hours.
• There are no published rules for porting a landline NUMBER. In 2021 NTRA introduced accelerated portability of fixed internet (the whole process takes no more than 72 hours: disconnection at the old provider within 24 hours, connection at the new one within 48), but nothing has been published about fixed telephone numbers — ask the carrier when ordering.
• An Egyptian number cannot be taken to a foreign provider: porting exists only between NTRA licensees inside the country.
• A number in a private person's name carries no trunk. Corporate services (SIP Trunk, PRI) are contracted to a legal entity; a retail fixed line can be registered to an individual, but never comes with a trunk.
• ⚠️ Changing carrier means changing the physical link. The trunk arrives over the carrier's own link: a VPN at TE, a compound access network at e&. Such a hand-off cannot be "moved" to another carrier without new installation work.

Rules and paperwork#

If it does not work#

1. The carrier's trunk lives on its own link, not on the internet. This is the main local cause and no setting cures it: at TE the hand-off arrives over the VPN sold with the service, at e& over the gated community network. A cloud PBX cannot reach it — you need an on-site gateway.
2. SIP does not pass through the Egyptian ISP. The filtering works on packet contents rather than port numbers: changing the port and switching to TCP do not help. Test the venue's link with a live call before buying phones and gateways.
3. The parameters did not come from the provisioning sheet. No Egyptian carrier publishes the host, port or authentication mode. If the sheet does not state the mode, ask outright: REGISTER or an address whitelist. With a whitelist the registration checkbox must be cleared, otherwise the trunk stays "not registered" forever.
4. Registration is green but no calls arrive. Check the format in which the carrier sends the number: it is not published anywhere, and there are two options — national without the leading zero, and E.164. Look at the SIP trace in the trunk menu and align the line with what actually arrives.
5. Audio is one-way or missing. Ask about codecs: our PBX speaks G.711 and G.722. A "G.729 only" trunk looks healthy and produces no sound.
6. A call to the second number is handled by the first one's scenario. A line is matched by the last seven digits, while a mobile number without the leading zero has ten: 010 1234 5678 and 011 1234 5678 merge into one line. Separate them with routing or keep them in different locations.

The remaining common causes are in the general section of the overview; checking the address and port is covered by Test the connection.

Frequently asked questions#

Can an Egyptian number be connected to a cloud PBX today?#

No. A dedicated PBX is not created for locations in Egypt, and the reason is not technical: Law 10/2003 prohibits by-passing international calls "by any means whatsoever" without an NTRA licence, and the VoIP licence terms forbid even a licensee to carry voice across the border. This page will be useful when a launch becomes possible — and it already helps to choose a carrier and understand what a number will cost.

Why do Egyptian carriers publish no host or port?#

Because there really is none published: neither Telecom Egypt, nor e&, nor Vodafone, nor Orange publish trunk parameters — they come in the provisioning sheet from an engineer. Guessing "typical" values is pointless: the trunk will either reject the call or silently fail to come up.

Can a "local Cairo number" be bought from a foreign provider?#

Such offers exist, but treat them with care: the large and careful aggregators state openly that they have no local Egyptian numbers (DIDWW — "Not available", Twilio — "no voice enabled numbers in this locale"), while small sites sell "Cairo DIDs" without a single technical parameter and without a regulator licence. For a venue the risk is one-sided: the number goes on the signage and the menu, and it can disappear without warning.

Is an Egyptian legal entity required?#

For a number from a local carrier — in practice yes: corporate services are contracted with an Egyptian company, and under NTRA's rules only an Egyptian joint stock company can be a licensee. An international aggregator does not solve this — it removes the paperwork question, not the question of carrying the call internationally.

Do emergency calls work through such a number?#

No. Egypt's emergency numbers — 122, 123, 180 and 112 — cannot be dialled through our PBX, and the duty to carry them free of charge rests with the carrier. Always keep an ordinary phone or a mobile on shift.

Sources#

All links checked on 09.09.2026.

Regulator and law

• NTRA — licensing section and the text of Article 21: https://www.tra.gov.eg/en/regulations/licenses/
• Telecommunication Regulation Law No. 10 of 2003 (NTRA translation, PDF) — Articles 21 and 72, the duty to carry emergency calls free of charge: https://www.tra.gov.eg/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Law-No-10-of-2003.pdf
• NTRA — terms and conditions of the "Internet Connectivity (Class A) and VoIP Services" licence (PDF), clauses 11–12: https://www.tra.gov.eg/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Rules-and-conditions-Data-ISP-Class-A.pdf
• NTRA — Licenses Brief Description (PDF), licence classes and terms: https://www.tra.gov.eg/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Licenses-Brief-Description-.pdf
• NTRA — Information about Licensed Telecom Services Providers (PDF, revision 06.2026): https://www.tra.gov.eg/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Information-about-Licensed-Telecom-Services-Providers.pdf
• NTRA — new rules on fixed internet portability within 72 hours (16.09.2021): https://www.tra.gov.eg/en/new-rules-to-facilitate-fixed-internet-portability-service-to-take-place-within-72-hours/
• ITU-T — Egypt (country code +20), national numbering plan updates (PDF): https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-t/oth/02/02/T020200003E0004PDFE.pdf
• Andersen Egypt — translation of Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020: https://eg.andersen.com/translation-law-151-2020/

Carriers

• Telecom Egypt — SIP Trunk Service: https://te.eg/web/te-business/sip-trunk-service
• Telecom Egypt — PRI Circuit: https://te.eg/web/te-business/pri-circuit
• Telecom Egypt — Managed IP Telephony: https://te.eg/web/te-business/managed-ip-telephony · Hosted Call Center: https://te.eg/web/te-business/hosted-call-center
• Etisalat Business (e& Egypt) — SIP Trunk tariff: https://www.etisalat.eg/StaticFiles/portal/etisalat/pages/corporate/SIP_en.html
• e& Egypt — Fixed Line (E-Fixed): https://www.eand.com.eg/portal/pages/super_connect_home/fixed_line_en.html
• Vodafone Egypt — Business: https://web.vodafone.com.eg/en/business
• Orange Egypt — Business Solutions: https://www.orange.eg/en/business/business-solutions/ · Virtual IVR: https://www.orange.eg/en/business/business-solutions/virtual-ivr

International providers

• DIDWW — SIP Trunking Services in Egypt ("Not available"): https://www.didww.com/voice/global-sip-trunking/Egypt
• Twilio — SIP Trunking Pricing in Egypt: https://www.twilio.com/en-us/sip-trunking/pricing/eg
• AVOXI — Egypt Virtual Phone Numbers: https://www.avoxi.com/egypt-virtual-phone-numbers/
• CommPeak — Egypt DID Numbers: https://www.commpeak.com/services/virtual-numbers-dids/egypt/did-numbers
• AstraQom — SIP Trunks in Egypt: https://astraqom.com/en/egypt/sip-trunks

Related pages#

• Connecting a provider's number to your PBX — the common steps, trunk modes, network and connection test.
• Setting up SIP phones — how to connect desk phones, DECT and gateways to extensions.