France Telecom to invest E500m in Orange Tunisie

France Telecom has promised to invest E500m in the network of Orange Tunisie, its mobile phone operation in Tunisia which launched its services on 5 May.
The French operator has already built a network covering most of Tunisia’s major cities. It expects…

France Telecom has promised to invest E500m in the network of Orange Tunisie, its mobile phone operation in Tunisia which launched its services on 5 May.

The French operator has already built a network covering most of Tunisia’s major cities. It expects to cover the rest of the country with the network, which provides fixed, 2G and 3G mobile services, by the end of this year.

France Telecom won a licence to operate in Tunisia in June last year through a joint bid with local company Divona Telecom. Under the rules of the licensing round, all international players had to bid with a local partner which would take a 51% stake in the new operator if successful.

Internet service provider Divona is owned by Tunisian businessman Marwan Mabrouk, the son-in-law of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s president.

At the official launch for Orange Tunisie on 4 May, Didier Lombard, chairman of France Telecom, praised the model of working with a local partner in emerging markets.

“Today Orange is happy to associate itself with Marwan Mabrouk to launch the first real converged telecoms operator in Tunisia,” Lombard said. “I believe in this type of partnership where a big actor locally allies themselves with an international operator.”

Orange Tunisie competes with majority state-owned Tunisie Telecom and Tunisiana, which is jointly owned by Egypt’s Orascom Telecom and Qatar’s Qtel.