­Egypt’s mobile phone networks have been able to resume their services after being ordered to shut-down their networks on Friday. Vodafone, France Telecom controlled Mobinil and UAE based Etisalat owned, Etisalat Misr were all ordered to block their networks in selected areas throughout the country.

The move seemed to fail on the government though, as protests had been pre-arranged in anticipation of such action, and the blockage seemed to simply inflame existing anger with the government.

According to Vodafone Egypt, they would like to make it clear that the authorities in Egypt have the technical capability to close their network, and if they had done so it would have taken much longer to restore services to our customers. It has been clear to them that there were no legal or practical options open to Vodafone or any of the mobile operators in Egypt but to comply with the demands of the authorities.

The decision to shut the network had been criticized by international campaigners who called upon the mobile networks to defy the government, despite the technical impossibility of doing so.

There have also been unconfirmed rumors that the mobile networks might be ordered to shut-down again on Monday and that landline networks may also be shut-down. The landline networks have been the main route for internet traffic as users which to dialing international ISPs to bypass the blocked local broadband services.