Egyptian mobile telephone operator Mobinil may buy its own international gateway licence if its current provider does not cut prices, Al Mal newspaper quoted a senior executive as saying on Sunday.

Mobinil signed a gateway agreement for overseas traffic in early 2008 with fixed line monopoly Telecom Egypt (TE).

It now wants TE to reduce charges for leasing circuits and telephone exchanges and for international calls.

'Mobinil wants to obtain better prices than anyone else seeking its service,' Mobinil's Commercial Vice President Yasser Radwan told the newspaper.

'If TE does not provide for the needs of its customers at competitive rates for international calls, then every company will study getting its own licence,' Radwan said.

A second Egyptian mobile operator, Vodafone Egypt, last week renewed its own contract to use TE's gateway, while Egypt's third operator, Etisalat Egypt, bought its own gateway licence from the Egyptian government in 2007.

Telecom Egypt is expected to earn 4 billion Egyptian pounds ($725 million) over the course of its three-year contract with Vodafone Egypt, the Egyptian Ministry of Communications said in a statement last week.

Telecom Egypt owns a 45 per cent stake in Vodafone's Egyptian unit.-Reuters