LONDON-Orascom Tunisia, the country’s second mobile operator, is due to begin commercial operations next week. This will bring it into competition with state-owned Tunisia Telecoms. The company is a joint venture between Egyptian company Orascom Telecom and its Kuwaiti rival NMTC.
Orascom Tunisia had originally planned to kick off its business at the end of January 2003. However, a successful test of the network this month allowed for an earlier start. The operator plans to set up 500,000 lines in 2003, according to Orascom Tunisia Chairman Fethi Houidi.
The network will initially go live in the capital Tunis, where one-fifth of the North African country’s 10 million people live. Services to the Hammamet-Nabeul region, will be rolled out about ten days later. Three other major cities, Sousse, Sfax and Bizerte, can expect to have access to services between January and March 2003.
“By May 2003 we will be able to cover 60 percent of the Tunisian population and by the end of December 2003 we will cover 80 percent of the population,” Chief Executive Jean-Pierre Roeland said.
The government has said the two operators will each add 500,000 lines in 2003 and boost the country’s mobile-phone capacity to more than 1.5 million lines by the end of next year.
The Orascom consortium won a Tunisian mobile-phone license in May for $454 million, half of which is already paid. The remaining $227 million will be paid on September 30, 2004. Orascom Tunisia plans to invest $250 million over the next three years. It forecast a turnover of $111.6 million in 2003.
The company expects to run a network for 150,000 users during the first quarter of 2003 before further expanding the operation.
