As I've mentioned earlier on this blog, I was on vacation in Egypt last week. A beautiful country, with an incredibly friendly population, and I'm definitely going back.

In July last year, my late colleague Jon Barkan wrote a post on GCI Group's Grounded in Reality about how great his cell phone coverage was in Israel. I suppose most people wouldn't be surprised about that, but Egypt on the other hand, is probably considered a third world country by many. In terms of mobile usage however, the Egyptian population can't be that far off the lead. For instance, on the way to a bedouin camp in the desert, our driver was constantly checking Facebook on his cell, and he wasn't the only one. Geoff Livingston has written about this on Now is Gone as well.

But what amazed me the most was excellent coverage I had in Egypt. In October last year, I was in New York City, and I had to leave my hotel room to get a decent signal. In the GCI Group meeting room, I didn't have a signal at all. During one week in Egypt on the other hand, I had continuous coverage, and I'm not just talking about regular GSM signals. In most locations, I enjoyed good 3G signals, and on many occasions I had 3.5G coverage as well, which, at least in theory, gave me a 3.6 megabyte per second download speed. In New York, I had neither 3G nor 3.5G - ever!

The ultimate mobile test was on a half-day quadbike trip in the desert. Two hours into the mountains from Hurghada, near a bedouin camp, in a deep ravine, I had full bars of 3.5G signals. A picture of the location is above this paragraph. I could check my email, Facebook, and could have sent a Qik video. The only reason I didn't was that I had no idea how much it cost.

Now, I have no idea why someone would put up a cell tower to cover this location, but as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather be lost in the Egyptian desert than in New York City.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone I met in Egypt. It is truly an incredible country.