­The Egyptian government is again looking at the possibility of awarding a fourth mobile license in the country, although no decision is expected until early next year.

The Telecoms Minister, Hany Mahmoud told the Reuters news agency that the government could issue a new license, or may work with the incumbent networks to improve services.

"We are studying the whole telecommunications market and what we exactly need. Is it a new player or distributing things into the different players we have now? It's not clear yet and it will be finalised in the first quarter next year," Mahmoud told Reuters on the sidelines of a business conference in Cairo.

He recently put a new Chairman into the state-owned Telecom Egypt with a mandate to shake up the landline operator, which also owns a 44.8% stake in Vodafone Egypt. There have long been suggestions that Telecom Egypt would like its own mobile license, although it would probably then have to sell its stake in the local Vodafone operations as well.