Tunisiana’s 3G bid declined (Tunisia)
Telecom operator Tunisiana’s bid for the 3G and fixed licence has been declined by Tunisia’s ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Ministry, according to a report by Biztech Africa.
As per the report the Minister of Information and Communication Technologies, Mongi Marzouk, said Tunisiana had offered to purchase the landline license for $ 23.38 million and the 3G license for $ 81.2 million. The Ministry earlier accepted the company’s proposed terms for network quality.
The report reveals that while the Ministry declined to specify what bid it would accept, it pointed out that Orange Tunisia had paid $ 179 million in June 2009 for a similar package with the option of an exclusive 3G licence for one year.
Tunisie Telecom acquired its 3G licence in 2010, for $ 75.3 million. Tunisiana has indicated that it may revise its bid.
Orange Tunisia offers its customers free mobile access to Wikipedia (Tunisia)
All customers who own an Orange SIM card and a phone can access the Internet using their phone’s browser to the largest online encyclopedia in the world, as often as they want at no extra cost as long as they remain on the pages of the Wikipedia mobile site.
They have the opportunity to navigate freely among millions of items available in the languages ??most used in Tunisia 1 (including Arabic, French and English).By supporting the connection fees for its customers, Orange Tunisia supports the initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation to disseminate knowledge to billions of people around the world where Internet access is mainly from their mobile phones.
This approach is part of a major and unprecedented partnership signed last January between the Orange Group and the Wikimedia Foundation. This partnership will eventually enable over 70 million Orange customers in Africa and the Middle East (AMEA) easier access to knowledge. According to Marc Rennard, Executive Director of the Africa, Middle East and Asia Orange, in countries where it is not easy to access knowledge, they offer access to all their customers from the mobile to Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia in the world with no connection fee. This is the first partnership of its kind and demonstrates again the ability to innovate Orange in Africa and the Middle East, and provide real value to their customers.
Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia reference with nearly 500 million unique monthly visitors and more complete with over 20 million articles in 280 languages, from the contribution of a community of volunteers.
Orange Tunisia chooses Volubill for new ‘Happy Hour’ feature (Tunisia)
Volubill, a leading supplier of policy management solutions to service providers around the world, announced that customer and prominent African service provider Orange Tunisia will be discussing the importance of its real-time charging capabilities in offering customers unique and differentiating services, at the upcoming second annual Policy Control & Real-Time Conference.
Orange Tunisia will be speaking on Volubill’s behalf about the ‘Happy Hour’ feature, which allows for high-quality service coupled with mitigated data charges to customers between certain hours of the day. The conference is being held April 24th and 25th at the Krasnapolsky Hotel in Amsterdam.
The presentation, entitled “Assessing the challenges of data capacity management,” will take place on day two of the conference and will be delivered by Orange Tunisia’s Senior Manager of Data Charging, Afef Belhadj. It will detail how Volubill’s solutions are being used within the Orange Tunisia architecture, the advent of the Happy Hour policy, and the service provider’s rapid gain in customer base since its commercial launch in May of 2010.
In order to implement the policy successfully, Orange Tunisia needed software that would be able to manage both customer differentiation and bandwidth capacity constraints. Volubill’s solution capabilities, such as off-peak charging capabilities and quota management, have become essential in enabling these types of time-based policies.
The Happy Hour feature is just one of many sophisticated and innovative charging packages that makes Orange Tunisia such a successful service provider in terms of subscriber gains and retention, said John Aalbers, CEO, Volubill. He added that they are proud to have them as one of their customers, as they consistently use their solutions in order to provide their subscribers with a quality of service unmatched by many of their competitors. Doing so, however, means they are confronted with many hurdles, both from a technical and policy standpoint.
Orange & Investec launches 3G network in Tunisia
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A mobile network has been launched by France Telecom’s Orange in the North African country of Tunisia. The venture has been launched in co operation with Investec, a Tunisian subsidiary of the Mabrouk group and Orange holds 49% in the joint venture.
One billion dinars (around EUR500 million) will be invested by Orange Tunisia to set up the network and to launch the operations. Majority of Tunisia’s major cities is already covered by this network and it will be doubled by the end of the year.
According to Didier Lombard, Chairman of France Telecom, Orange is proud to associate itself with Marwan Mabrouk to build Tunisia’s first genuine convergent telecoms operator and together they are committed to a project that will transform the Tunisian telecommunications market, and which in turn will help the country on its way to joining the world’s most competitive economies.
A network of nine shops and 400 distribution outlets will benefit Orange Tunisia. Almost 1,500 people will be hired by the company by the end of this year.
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Orange Tunisia’s network to be launched in April
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The first call was made on the 3G network of Orange Tunisia on February 4 in an event attended by government ministers and journalists. The operator’s obligation to have the network up and running within six months has been met by the official technical inauguration of the network.
The network will be commercially launched in the month of April while the pilot service will begin with employees of ISP Planet on March 18. Video telephony, mobile TV via WAP and video surveillance services will be offered by the network.
The operator also aims for its 3G network to cover 98 percent of the population by the end of 2011 and discussions are underway to secure the distribution license for the Apple iPhone in Tunisia
