Alcatel Wins Tunisia GSM Contract

Alcatel has been awarded a US$61 million contract to extend the GSM/EDGE mobile network of Tunisie Telecom, the incumbent fixed and mobile operator in Tunisia. Under the terms of the contract, Alcatel will provide Tunisie Telecom with its Evolium multi-standard radio access solution which integrates all GSM-based mobile technologies, from GSM/GPRS to EDGE and 3G/UMTS.

Ahmed Mahjoub, Chairman and managing director of Tunisie Telecom declared: "This contract constitutes the logical continuation of our collaboration with Alcatel. The extension of our network is essential to enable us increase our network capacity, provide high quality mobile services to meet the ever growing market demands and migrate to new broadband mobile services."

"At Alcatel, we are committed to meeting our customers' needs by constantly providing them with powerful, reliable and cost-effective mobile solutions," added Olivier Picard, President of Alcatel's activities in France, Africa, Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. "This contract with Tunisie Telecom perfectly illustrates a mutually beneficial relation based on a long standing vendor/operator partnership which began in 1997."

According to The Mobile World, Tunisie Telecom ended last year with just over 3.4 million subscribers and a 60% market share. In comparison, new market entrant, Orascom ended the year with just under 2.3 million subscribers. The country has a population of about 10 million."

Posted to the site on 21st March 2006