TTE, a telecommunications solutions integrator in Tunisia, and member of One Tech Group, and Alcatel-Lucent have signed a partnership agreement for supplying enterprise voice and data solutions in Libya and Tunisia.
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The partnership positions Alcatel-Lucent as a reference supplier of network infrastructure, IP telephony, call centers, applications and services. The company said that the two organizations will work together to offer communication services while enabling network infrastructure to help businesses and governments increase competitiveness.

The services supplied by TTE also include automation and remote management services for water, oil and gas. Integrated services in fields such as security, video-surveillance and geo-localization are also supported by TTE.

Lamia Fourati-Ben Jaafar, CEO of TTE, said: “This partnership expands the range of products and allows to offer suitable services for our clients, including banks, small- and medium-sized business and public institutions. Our services include engineering, integration, implementation and maintenance."

In the first week of November 2008, Alcatel-Lucent said that the company has been selected by ARIA, as prime supplier for building and maintaining a nation-wide wireless broadband network based on WiMAX 802.16e-2005 (Rev-e) technology.

This network will enable ARIA to provide municipalities, businesses, small office/home office (SoHo) and residential users with access to the Internet as well as advanced broadband multimedia services, such as video streaming. In a second phase of the project, ARIA plans to introduce voice over IP (VoIP) and virtual private network (VPN) services.

Via [CBR networking]

This event is supported by organizations and institutions of international renown in the field of CRM and Customer Relationship and the support of prestigious media.
The 2008 edition of Convergence Expo this year is articulated around three main themes, the success of the Customer Relationship Strategy, offering offshore call centers and Tunisians Any IT or new picture of Client Relations.

Go to [Convergences Expo website]

On the recurrent dilemma of volume versus value, Eric Kerbouriou of Tunisiana, owned by Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, stressed the necessity to strike a balance. He argued that loyalty programs to retain high-value customers needs to accompany the expansion of services to low cost users.

Country strategy examples from Sudan, Tunisia and Lebanon were followed by a presentation on the advantages of infrastructure sharing to cut costs.

Comprising Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia, the region had 102 million subscriptions at end of 2007, but penetration remains low at just below 50 percent, according to a statement from Informa.

Tunisia seems to be in the heart of the communications recolution.

Via [Daily News Egypt]

Many of the poorer countries in the region have vast swathes of their land not covered by GSM or any other connectivity. Sierra Leone, to pick one random example, has no coverage except in and around its capital, Freetown. It is wise not to expect coverage when travelling outside major urban centres, even to some large towns.

Having said that, some vast areas have been covered by pioneering operators who cannot rely on the sort of infrastructure taken for granted in much of the rest of the world - a reliable national electricity grid to power base stations, for example.

South Africa, Swaziland and Tunisia are among the most covered countries geographically, again by GSM. South Africa is the only major country to have launched W-CDMA.

Via [Silicon.com]

There's no surprise that Tunisia comes among the best networks in Africa as the competition between Tunisiana and Tunisie Telecom was based in three major facts: prices, services and network coverage. i have been traveling the country all around for years in my former job and the cover was always excellent even in the most far places.

Figures recently released by the Ministry of Communication Technologies reveal a significant growth of mobile phone and internet users in Tunisia. In June 2008 the two mobile phone operators (Tunisie Telecom and Tunisiana) had a combined 8.12 million mobile phone subscribers up from 7 million twelve months earlier.

At the same point, there were 2.68 million internet users compared to 1.68 million in June 2007. The number of ADSL connections has doubled from 76,000 in 2007 to 153,000 in 2008. 27% of users have 512KB connections, and 22,000 users have a connection equal or superior to 1Mbps.

The number of companies benefiting from WiMAX connections reached 700 at the end of June 2008, and the number of subscribers to data sending through VSAT had also increased to reach 420, notably among enterprises producing software and computer systems and call centres.

Via [TeleGeography]

The GSMA just announced that entries are invited for the 2009 Global Mobile Awards and the penultimate round of its Mobile Innovation Global Competition, both of which will be presented at the mobile industry’s biggest annual event, the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on 17 February 2009.

The GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards are a unique platform for companies in the mobile industry to gain truly independent recognition for their work.

This year’s awards incorporate several new categories including a new ‘Green Mobile’ Award (highlighting eco-friendly mobile products, services and initiatives), Best Mobile Internet, Best Mobile TV Service and Best Mobile Money Service.

The Best Mobile Technology categories have been refreshed to ensure they capture the wealth of creativity and imagination in the mobile industry. Categories of Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Services, and Best Mobile Handset, are already established as highly desirable awards for any new product or service.

The deadline for entries for the Global Mobile Awards is Friday 28 November 2008 (5.00pm GMT). A panel of independent analysts, journalists and specialist experts will choose the winners, who will receive their awards at a gala dinner at the National Palace in Barcelona on Tuesday 17 February 2009, during the Mobile World Congress.

The GSMA’s commitment to innovation is supported by the Mobile Innovation Market community, which has created the Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition. The Mobile Innovation Market encourages breakthrough technology, applications and services in the mobile industry by bringing together smaller companies developing innovative products and solutions, with industry investors from leading venture capital firms and senior figures from mobile operators and leading global brands.

On 16 February at the Mobile World Congress, the Top 15 Innovators will present their ideas in front of the Mobile Innovation Marketplace audience and a panel of esteemed judges; from the five Category Winners to be named that day, two will emerge as global finalists and will compete against other Global Finalists selected from regional Mobile Innovation tournaments in the Americas, APAC and a virtual ‘online’ round.

The finalists will then compete head-to-head on 17 February for the prestigious title of ‘2009 GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Champion’ to be awarded at the Global Mobile Awards Gala that evening. The deadline for entries for the Mobile Innovation EMEA tournament is 5 December, 2008.

For more details on the categories, rules, entry forms and more, you can check out the following links: Global Mobile Awards and Mobile Innovation Awards.

Via [Startup Arabia]

According to Swedish case maker Krusell, the Top 10 selling mobile phones in June 2008 were:
1. (8) Apple iPhone
2. (5) HTC Diamond
3. (3) Nokia E51
4. (2) Nokia 6300
5. (1) Nokia 3109
6. (9) LG KU990
7. (6) Nokia N95 8 GB
8. (4) Sony Ericsson K810i
9. (-) Sony Ericsson K530i
10. (10) Sony Ericsson W890i
() = Last month's position.

At the moment, many companies in the Accessory industry are loading their warehouses with iPhone accessories just waiting for the European launch of the 3G version on July 11.

The list is based upon the number of pieces of model specific mobile and smart phone cases that have been ordered from Krusell during June 2008. Krusell's list is unique due to the fact that it reflects the sales of phones on six continents and in more than 50 countries around the globe.

Via [TNC Net]

...Nokia has recovered almost all of Symbian shares at Sony Ericsson, Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens, Samsung is the only one that has not yet given its agreement, all for a total of 264 million euros.

But where Nokia hard knocks, it is precisely that the Finnish mark does not keep for itself and Symbian has announced Symbian Foundation to transform Symbian free software under license Eclipse. Suddenly, everyone is interested including AT & T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone and we will be able to see both the S60 as the UIQ or MOAPS at all trademarks related to the Symbian Foundation.

Via [Tom.Z] Via [Journal du Geek]

It just makes a counter attack to Windows Mobile, I bet any brand would go ahead ah grab Symbian for free rather than paying MS.

There are two reasons why it should not be illegal, or considered unethical, to use someone else's Wi-Fi network: 1) By using a Wi-Fi network you're -- by definition -- asking for, and receiving, permission from the owner; and 2) Your computer can't be on their Wi-Fi network unless their network is in your computer.

Via [Mike Elgan]

It's happening here in Tunisia all the time, I'll be covering a whole story soon.

Via [Nostradamus]

In a recent annual report released by the Arab Advisors, a research firm that specializes in communications, Tunisia is ranked 12th just behind Libya and Algeria, I never imagined that our southern close neighbors could be ranked so high!

Via [Jazarah]

Found in Twitter, an other furious customer is showing his anger against the Tunisie Telecom (The only land lines operator), the message says: "After 8 complaints and 4 month delay, I got a pulse less wire!".

Hope one one day we would be wearing T-shits written down: I like TT! but right now all we can feel against TT is hate and fury.

Based on reliable sources that Ahmed Mahjoub CEO of Tunisia Telecom has been dismissed and he was replaced by Mr. Montassar Ouaili just be recalled when he was so far the post ambassador to Tunisia to Italy.

Montassar Ouaili had already served as minister of communication technologies, secretary of state for scientific research and Secretary of State for information technology.

Appointment hopes that bodes well for the future of telecommunications in Tunisia.

Via [Stupeur]

I'm quite optimist as much as Amine, but I think that the company needs more than just flushing down the old boss because he failed because we know that his failure is inevitable and will flushable.

It has almost down since this morning, an insider from Tunisie Telecom is reporting a general failure due to an issue with the DNS server related to the ARPA or ICANN -still not quite sure.

The issue has been sloved right now, the ISP recommanded their customers to restart their router/modems

A delegation of Communications and Information Technology Commission (ITC) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, led by Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Jaafari, Governor of ITC, concluded an official visit to Tunisia today after having taken part in the fifth annual meeting of the general assembly of the Arab Network for the Commissions Regulating Telecommunications and Information Technology, which was held over the past two days in the Tunisian city of Hammamat.
During the meeting, the Saudi delegation presented the Kingdom's experience in the areas of informatics and communication techniques and information infrastructure and the vision of the Kingdom about the topics on the agenda of the meeting.
The sixth General Assembly of the Arab Network for the Commissions Regulating Telecommunications and Information Technology will be hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia next year.

Yes Tunisie Telecom is going middle eastern, as you know KSA investors have bought more than 45% of the capital of the governmental telecommunication company and now changes are coming small by small for long time Nokia, Siemsns and Alcatel were managing the TT technology as well as for Tunisiana, but the upcoming days are wiling to bring a winds of change, let's wait and see.

In Tunisia, the VoIP lacking a strict legislation is prohibited for use by corporations, under the pressure and the fear of Tunisie Telecom, that very innovative and useful technology was used under secrecy by most of the CRP business: 90% are call centers whose axe bone is about to get communications absolutely through digital channels with France.

In a very strange and unatteneded move, ATI the governmental Internet provider having hold control of all the Internet over all the private ISPs have blocked the VoIP ports and stream since last week for all customers using local T1 connections, only the big companies having dedicated international T1 connection or subscribed to Divona's Wimax services still have their VoIP working.

The panic is what describes a tens of small and middle sized call center all over Tunis, whose business is down since a while, what's going on? and what the hell made ATI do that? Are they trying to make everybody get a much more expensive service or is it just that they can't still control VoIP?

Credits goes to [A7kili]



Shots send by Kerek E.T.

It has been more than 6 months that Tunisiana is trying to get an agreement with Black Berry in order to introduce a full support of the handled to its customers, according to our insider in Tunisiana, the challenge is not technical, the current systems can easily support BB, but the clue is that they will have to pay fees for ever connected BB.

The Black Berry itself is not that popular in Tunisia, remember that number one phone locally is Nokia, but many corporations are bringing with them their own tools and technology, as for roaming it works great thus many companies have to get a Europe or US Sim to make their BB working in Tunisia, it's a little expensive considering the roaming fees, but it seems that's really worth it.

Screen shots of Vodaphone Tunisia testing their network (ID:60511 ans 605 12) from their headquarters in the franch Alcatel labs in El Ghazela. for more in formations take a look here.

Photos creadits goes to Kerek E.T.

I was invited last Saturday by Radio Tounes Bledi a Tunisian main stream radio in a show celled "Bridging Worlds" where the talk was about my "Tunisia Wireless" blog.

The conversation was pretty cool and I did explain why I did start this blog and why I did in English and how far can I go with this little project.


Take a look at [Radio Tounes Bledi(french)]

If you're around Arinana and that you do a network after midday, you'll certainly find out a third GSM network labeled 605 12 offering UMTS connection, it's carzy but that's the third phone operator in Tunisia.

Vodaphone is getting in the ever flourishing Tunisian market through Alcatel warehouse in the Gazella Technology center, it's planned to be fully working by the end of the year.

Vodaphone will give the market a real squeeze even tied with the local legislation, as usual let's wait and see

Belive or not, a running bid is under the works for the acquisition of the permit to exploit Tunisian land phones in Tunisiana, the bid was lanched lately with Tunisinana and Divona on the race.

Tunisie Telecom will soon get a competitor to its low quality land lines service, the land phones business includes also ISDN, ADSL, T1, ...

If ever one of those -Especillay Tunisiana- gets in the permit we;re going to see better services and lower prices -even from Tunisie itself- areal improvement in the service, just imagine that your ADSL with less paperwork for the 1/10 of the price installed in a couple of hours.

TUNIS, Tunisia, April 22, 2008 - Cisco today reconfirmed its commitment to support the economic development of Tunisia by unveiling plans to open its first office in the Tunisian capital. With the North Africa region emerging as a key area of growth for Cisco, the company's announcement comes at a time when Tunisia has begun to harness the power of information and communications technology (ICT) to drive its development.

"The new office will mark yet another milestone for Cisco in Tunisia," said Adel Dahmani, general manager, Cisco Tunisia. "The vision of the country's leadership has allowed it to transition quickly to a 'connected' world. Tunisia continues to reap the benefits of technology and offer the most innovative communication services to its citizens."

As part of its new office plans, Cisco has now finalized arrangements to move to new permanent premises in Tunis, the capital city. Cisco Tunisia currently employs 12 business and technical professionals, all Tunisian, working on local and regional projects in and outside the country, and is looking to grow its current presence in the country.

Cisco Networking Academy: Bringing ICT skills to a Tunisian workforce

In an effort to play an active role in the development of a skilled Tunisian workforce, Cisco is working closely with the country's public and private organizations to roll out education-specific programs that are designed to narrow the ICT skills gap in Tunisia. For example, Cisco has provided substantial funding, technology and resources to the Tunisian education sector via the Cisco® Networking Academy®.

The Networking Academy provides ICT skills to students globally to improve their career and economic opportunities. Networking Academies operate in high schools, colleges, universities, technical and military schools, community-based organizations and government bodies in over 160 countries. Its curriculum teaches the design, development and implementation of the networks that underpin businesses and other organizations. In addition, its advanced technology curricula in areas such as security, wireless and IP telephony provide exposure to the latest technology skills in those fields. It also has a module teaching basic IT skills.

The first Networking Academy in Tunisia was founded in El Ghazala, l'Ariana, September 2001.There are now 12 networking academies in the country. École Supérieure des Communications de Tunis (Sup'com) integrates the Networking Academy curriculum into the school's normal course of study. All second-year engineering students at Sup'com are required to take the first semester of the four-semester CCNA® curriculum.

"Tunisia has all the right ingredients to create a successful ICT industry locally, with a skilled workforce and a fast-growing technology infrastructure. This is why Tunisia is an important area of growth for Cisco in the north Africa region. We see a great opportunity to provide advanced technology solutions and services to market segments such as the telecoms industry and the public sector by utilizing our strong strategic partner relationships and technical expertise. With this in mind, we are taking the necessary steps to enhance our presence in Tunisia," Dahmani concluded.

Via [Cisco Newsroom]

Tunisie Telecom has introduced a wap portal for its mobile phone customers. The portal Ahaya is open to all subscribers, offering information on news,...

Tunisiana is starting today a new service through its portable and a dedicted wap site offering hundreds of doownloble -via mobile- games and applications, it would be the first time that a phone operator offers such service.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, March 11, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- The CDMA Development Group (CDG) today announced that Africa and the Middle East are the fastest growing in terms of the number of 3G CDMA networks and subscribers, with 65 operators in 38 countries who have selected the technology to provide affordable telecommunications services and more than 12 million subscribers in the region. Of the list of operators, Algeria Telecom, Movicel in Angola, Starcomms of Nigeria, Sudatel, Wana in Morocco and Yemen Mobile all surpassed the one million CDMA subscriber mark in the past year. These milestones underscore how quickly CDMA2000(r) is becoming the technology of choice for emerging markets.

61 Tunisia Telecom Tunisia 1X (Commercial)

CDMA2000 is the most widely deployed 3G technology, with 252 operators in 99 countries, including 88 CDMA2000 1xEV-DO systems, serving more than 417 million subscribers. Counting 2G cdmaOne(tm) subscribers, there are more than 431 million CDMA users worldwide. CDMA2000 has become the technology of choice for developed and emerging market operators, and is deployable in the 450, 700, 800, 1700, 1900 and 2100 MHz bands. More than 1,950 CDMA2000 devices from 107 suppliers have been introduced to the market, including more than 492 EV-DO and 43 Rev. A devices.

Via [Prime News Wire]

We just knew from a Tunisiana insider that Planet is suing Tunisiana for "selling Internet services", as you know, Tunisiana have started selling a new EDGE service to its customers: a PCIMCA Air card (Sony Eriscon GC85 and GC89 for 400 and 600 TND) and now a much simpler USB Alcatel Modem (For 220 TND) using the same bandwidth as the GSM stream you use to call.

The product is mobile and cost all over the purchase of the Card and 50 bucks per months suitable for any internet mania or business man, the product was so successful that Tunisian run out of stocks, therefore Planet Tunisie (The major Internet provider in Tunisia) declared war on Tunisiana, the argument would that Tunisiana is getting into a unlicensed filed of activity.

It's crazy how such success can make other companies jealous, more to flow keep stay tuned.

Did you notice a new teasing ad in the city? It's an other Tunisiana Hold on sign for the new voice message service, record your message and send it directly to the phone number you like, a fast and efficient way to spread a word, save time or to keep you waiting foe hang up. More details coming soon.

(Photo creadits to Blog2Com)

The capacity of the submarine cable system South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4 (SEA-ME-WE-4), which connects many countries between Singapore and France, is to be doubled by the end of 2009 under a multi-million dollar project. The upgrade will be beneficial to India, as the cable system in one of the major bandwidth providers to the country.

The doubling of the cable system would result in increasing the trunk capacity of the cable and helping it support increasing broadband traffic along the route.

The cable system, owned by a consortium of 16 telecom carriers, has awarded the upgradation contract to global infrastructure major Alcatel-Lucent and Japanese company Fujitsu.

According to industry sources, Alcatel-Lucent has been awarded the turnkey contract for upgrading certain segments, linking between Mumbai and Marseilles in France.

The company will deploy additional dense wavelength division multiplexing equipment (DWDM) - a data transmission technology - on the India-France link and upgrade a terrestrial link connecting Alexandria and Suez.

Moreover, Alcatel-Lucent has the overall responsibility for the end-to-end realisation of the Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), a technology that transmits digital signals with different capacities.

The upgradation of the cable’s link between Mumbai and Singapore will be undertaken by Fujitsu, which will again be deploying DWDM technology.

SEA-ME-WE-4 spans nearly 20,000 km linking 14 countries from France to Singapore through Italy, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia. It has 16 landing stations, including one each in Mumbai and Chennai.

India’s Bharti Airtel and Tata Communications (formerly Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd) are the consortium partners in India, with the latter also being the network administrator for the system.

The cable system had a transmission capacity of 1.28 terabits and was lighted up in 2005. India is served by around 10 cable systems, including the consortium cables SEA-ME-WE series, Tata-Indicom-Chennai cable,Reliance-owned Flag and Falcon, BSNL cable and Bharti owned i2i among others.

Via [Business starndard]

Loss record of 5.4 million in 2007 DT; decline in turnover of 9.4% for our Operator history in the civil engineering and installation projects and expansion of the urban network.

Why are witnessing-2006 with a financial situation which is getting worse SOTETEL more?

On Friday, February 29, 2008: A financial communications, unusual, presented by Mr Ahmed MAHJOUB, in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of sotetel, came explain the reasons for this decline:

-- Increased costs of materials
-- Delays in building permits
-- High level of fixed costs
-- Delay in the implementation of the restructuring plan for lack of systems
Information

• Lack of a management information system project and therefore unable to
Measure the performance of departments and profitability per project
• Lack of planning system and thus limit the action to control costs.
• Lack of streamlining procurement and on-storage equipment and accessories
• A project management neoptimalni which is not conducive to good productivity
• Network weak, poorly organized and operating without goals
Performance
• Low grip human resource requirements of the market and above all
Those related to new technologies.

In short managing MAHJOUB Mr Ahmed, who is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors sotetel and CEO of Tunisia Telecom has suggested a lack of clear thinking and adaptation response to fluctuations in costs of materials.

We also note that management has not learned the lesson of the previous year, on the contrary it has accumulated serious misconduct and failed to cope with unrestrained competition in the sector.

Via [Tunisie Affaire]

Sotetel as much as many based land phone services are getting into a narrow path of pain, in fact beside many business, Sotetel have no intelligent structure as VoIP or modern PABX or even routing services or special featured software, it has always been living under the shadow of Tunisie Telecom in the time of the Wimax, the company would slowly go bankrupted after having its golden age of ADSL.

If the compagny have a chance to survive, it would be only through a total reconstruction better services it can be TT arm on making Wimax a good business for both.

The failure of Sotetel is also due to its delay of services amplified by Tunisie Telecom paperwork system, in fact our company located in the lake area have asked for ISDN since July but Sotetel never showed up to provide us with the connection, in TT they are accusing Sotetel ans Sotetel confirms that their system there is over full.

Mauritanian-Tunisian mobile phone provider Mattel has made significant growth in its turnover, with the number of subscribers up in 2007 to nearly 500,000, compared to 239,000 the previous year. In the field of transport, Mauritania Airways was established in 2006, in partnership with Tunis Air. The state of Mauritania owns 51 percent of the company's capital.

Via [Magharebia]

Tunisie Telecom have been acting outside Tunisia especially in Mauritania and Palestine, why the company didn't acquire enough expertise in its main market?

the telecom integrator and operator specializing in the innovation and deployment of wireless broadband technologies, announced today that it continues its negotiations with Tunisia Telecom in order to act as the provider of this state-of-the-art technology within the territory of Tunisia.

Via [Market Wire]

An insider of Tunisie Telecom just told me about this deal, TT is in process of signing a partnership with the Canadian company to provide Wireless service basically Wimax, the great boom including Tunisiana and some Tunisian ISPs is just getting prepared, the Wimax prices will fall to more than 60% with an upcoming growth of more than 70% by the mid 2009, Tunisie Telecom after seeing popularity of the Wimax and the decline of its land cables services, is seeking to be a good competitor.

Tunisie Telecom has launched on the market FIXI a package which offers capped consumers with multiple benefits.

1.La mastery of the budget: FIXI allows you to define in advance the maximum monthly expenditure in communication for a fixed line.

2.The choice: With three types of packages capped: 10, 15 or 20 TND per month , the customer can choose the best suited to its consumption. Each plan provides for credit of communication:
-- The package gives FIXI 10DT entitled to a credit communication 11DT (for comparison, a reload card of 10 TD gives credit 9DT)
-- The package gives FIXI 15DT entitled to a credit communication 18DT (for comparison, the equivalent reload card provides a credit of 13.5 DT)
-- The package gives FIXI 20DT entitled to a credit communication 25DT (for comparison, a reload card of 20 TD gives credit 18DT)

3. The simplicity of use: The 1st of the month, the account is fed automatically from the credit amount of communication on the package selected. The credit has not been consumed during the month was postponed and combined with the provision of the following month.
If he has used the balance, the account can be operated by a credit of additional communication by means of recharging.

4. Flexibility: The client can easily switch between normal prepaid subscription, a subscription ceiling, and one package to another, free of charge.
Tunisie Telecom also offers free, with a first package offered in a subscription service CLIP (Caller ID) included in the package at no extra cost. The customer has the option of paying in advance and enjoy free with 1 additional month or 2 months' free for all payments for another 6 months or 1 year in advance.

Mr. Ahmed Mahjoub, Chairman and CEO of Tunisie Telecom, said: "This new formula, which provides an innovation in the world of fixed telephony seeks to revitalize the use of fixed telephony and prepaid part of the policy to revive that Tunisia Telecom launched in 2007 in the sector of the fixed telephony and the Internet. "

The new offerings make it possible access to ADSL. So with FIXI, customers can order a subscription ADSL and automatically qualify for a discount on the cost of ADSL access Tunisia Telecom.
-- With the package FIXI, 5DT discount is offered on the monthly fee for access to ADSL 256Kbps throughput;
-- With the package FIXI, 10DT discount is offered on the monthly fee for access to ADSL 512Kbps throughput;
-- With the package FIXI, 15DT discount is offered on monthly charges ADSL access for the 1Mbps speed.

For more information visit [FixIlFix]

he number of mobile phone users in Tunisia rose to 7.8 million last year from 6.7 million in 2006, giving a mobile penetration of 78 percent of inhabitants. Adding in fixed lines, telephony penetration reached 90 percent. The figures were announced by minister for communication technologies El Hadj Gley in a presentation on the country's innovation strategy, reports local paper La Presse. The number of computers in the country grew to 767,000 last year, of which 62,000 were supplied by the government programme to supply family PCs.

Via [telecompaper]

The success of the GSM is due to the competition once Tunisiana got in the market, the land phones are just about ADSL, in fact few people use their land phone else for business, faxes or ADSL, the cell phone is most used in all circumstances.

Even Tunisia, which has a less thriving economy than SA, has a greater penetration rate, connecting 12.68 people per 1 000, he said.

Tunisia is having the biggest rate of connected people on broadband Internet of the whole continent.

Source [ITWeb]

It turns that Tunisie Telecom after warning people about the possible network outage, have changed its version from "maintenance" to "incident", the limited internet access accruing those days can longer more that the 12 hours planned to take a couple of other weeks, in the meanwhile, we hope the 2nd submarine cable will make it.

A insider from an other Telecommunication company doubts about TT tellings and wonders what does happens really to the Internet when it did sweep its customers om ISDN lines in the wait of restoring the international T1 connection.

The prophecy was true, one of the main submarine cables providing Tunisia with connection (Phone and Data) over Italy is down as the maintenance of the famous cut cables going to middle east from Europe.

The country is working as its half speed, a low connection is remarkably here and everybody wonder the worst, the remaining France connection is the only link to the outer world and as it happened in the middle east, things have started by a maintenance and half of cables eaten by fish.

Ob of the rumors to explain the whole "accident" thing is that there was a submarine earthquake that did damage the cables, others are talking about a conspiracy trying to push the middle east back to the dark ages, while all this happens nobody can really find an answer.

Tunisia is connected to the outer world through tow submarine connections: the major one from France and the other from Italy thus I have been acknowledged from a Tunisie Telecom(Tunisia monopolist telephone company) Insider that the internet connection would be down tonight from 10 pm to 10 am local time (+1 CST) for maintenance purposes.

What the hell is going on? and even if there was such maintenance works, why we shouldn't be able to get through the other one even with limited access? in my humble opinion we would be off for a while, exactly as it happened in the middle east.

Something is happen inning in the background and nobody wants to tell about it, I'll may be able to write again here. in the meanwhile hope me good luck, in Tunisia Internet is no more an alternative playground for kids, it's about 90% business communications gateway.

Even most of the wireless connections that goes through Wimax and Satellite will be affected as the providers such as Divona contract the Inetrbet service from a cable Partner (Planet), those few lucky companies who have dedicated up link and down link will be the only one getting to the outer world.

I can't pretend that the red and white crew teamed up with the penguin, but they have some touch of gods, in fact their last home-made installer for their brand new Air cards (HSDPA USB Modem)is powered by the most lovely and free installer innosetup, the above screen shot shows a personalized installer embed inside the card making the Air card much much easy to install. I just wish other Tunisian companies follow the example of this big red bear, you know about whom I'm talking about.

Tunisiana have introduced -since a couple of months- its bright new born: a GPS navigation system that knows how to into Tunis and the big cities through the most commons highways, it's claiming that the service is going to cover the whole cities small by small.
Its main functions are:
• Coverage: Greater Tunis and other major Cities (Sousse, Sfax)
• Guiding vocal guidance and symbolic
• Display 2D and 3D mapping
• Multilingual: Tunisian, German, English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese
• Research Points of Interest proximity, sorted by distance
• Searching for addresses throughout the Greater Tunis
• Automatic route
• Calculation of routes optimized (time / distance)
• Favorites and recent addresses registered
• Notifications of places of interest (hotels, restaurants, service stations, etc.).



Being a leader in the domain of the telecommunications have made this gadget possible in Tunisia through a collaboration of a local French company, the GPS equipment used is TamTam getting an excellent satellite coverage as Tunisia is located in the spot that covers Western Europe (France, Italy, Spain).



The product is sold 900 TND (About 800 USD)once time subscription purchase and available in the major of Tunisia sales points.

You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline. You can also read Schneier's comments on this coincidence.

Flag Telecom, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Reliance ADA Group, has had two cables damaged in the span of a week -- a quandary it has never dealt with until now. As it stands, traffic from the Middle East and surrounding areas is being routed through various other cables in an attempt to remain online, but any more snips and we could be dealing with ping times eerily similar to those seen in 1993 (or much, much larger issues).

Via [SlashDot]
Via [Engaget]



Any coming war into the gulf? internet for Petrol pressure? I wonder what's coming next and I know that doesn't mean a simple offline issue, it's about something really dangerous.

Click to enlarge.

A third undersea cable has been cut, effectively eliminating the Internet in the Middle East. But according to CNN that cable outage does not extend to Israel, Lebanon and Iraq.

Is it a coincidence that these three countries, who represent the next phase of the war on terrorism, were spared in the communications blackout that is affecting the rest of the Middle East?

...

The news of the multiple acts of cable sabotage are clear proof that a hostile force is doing its best to isolate the greater Middle East region (all the way to India) from the rest of the world. With the Internet down, it will be impossible for anyone to transmit video evidence out of the visually-embargoed zone

Via [Daily scare]

It seems that the recent Internet block out in the middle east is some kind of message in the next pressure methods, no more needs to troops invasion but a cut off of today's most valuable vital needs: the Internet.

If the rumors and the analytics are true, we just got into the so awaited star wars, where the fiction is the real new cold war between the so ever friends-enemies, perhaps the support of the middle east to Lebanon ans Palastinian resistance became an intolerable headache especially in the upcoming confrontations with Iran.

Though, the west healthy and pitiless is showing up his ability to control the world without moving army forces, a deadly weapon for whom the world is addicted, so can imagine in this time being unable to access the Internet or going back to dirty faxes and post mail?

As part of its new services -and may be in order stay up to date with Tunisiana- Tunisie Telecom has unveiled a new GPS Tracking service for enterprise customers seeking to increase efficiency, security and management of vehicle fleet despite Tunisiana Weenee, this system is about monitoring rather than Tunisiana's drivers localization and directions services.

Beside that the service was widely offered by a number of companies with satellite real time tracking, I think that the service is just an other answer from Tunisie Telecom to his competitor Tunisiana to be always in the race avoiding a totally blind imitation as usual.

Djezzy -member of the Orascom Telecom based in algeria- is about to get a permit from the government to expand its services and go satellite offering large corporate customers up and down link from the Eutelsat broadband.

Orascom Telecom Algeria, a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom Holding Group, has chosen ATLANTIC BIRD™ 3 to expand its broadband infrastructure in Algeria.

Eutelsat has optimised the coverage provided by the steerable beam on this satellite for North African coverage in order to support demand from users, who include
licensed telecom operators, to serve public administrations and companies from the Mediterranean coastline to remote locations in the Sahara desert.

Using the DVB-RCS standard for two-way broadband services, Orascom Telecom Algeria will enable its clients to have access to a broad range of communications services including Internet access, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), data transfer solutions, videoconferencing and Voice over IP. The company is targeting enterprises operating in the oil, gas and mining sectors as well as public administrations, hospitals, schools, custom and immigration control etc.

In addition to the lease of 54 MHz bandwidth on ATLANTIC BIRD™ 3 (36 MHz for the forward link and 18 MHz for the return link), Eutelsat is also supplying turnkey engineering support for Orascom.

Via [EutelSat main site]

Indeed there is fresh questions come to mind about future ability of the company to offer such services in Tunisia through its sister company Tunisiana.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Egyptian wireless company Orascom plans to invest up to $400 million in a new mobile phone network in North Korea, one of the world's poorest and most tightly controlled societies.

Hatim E. El Gammal, an investor relations official with Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E., said Thursday that the network would be the first based on 3G in North Korea.

El Gammal didn't elaborate on the deal but said construction would begin "in the near future."

Orascom said in a statement on its Web site Wednesday that a joint venture subsidiary, CHEO Technology, would offer services throughout North Korea for 25 years under the terms of the deal and exclusively for the first four years.

Orascom, the largest mobile communications company in the Middle East with 65 million subscribers, said it controls 75 percent of CHEO and the rest is held by the state-run Korea Post and Telecommunications Corp.

North Korea, a highly militaristic dictatorship in which dissent is severely punished, has lagged far behind its neighbors economically, with development stymied by years of mismanagement and isolation.

Still, the country has a working mobile phone network that covers the capital, Pyongyang, and some outlying areas. The network is based on the GSM, or global system for mobile communications, standard.

Mobile phone use, though not widespread, was once increasingly visible among North Koreans. Visitors to the country say it has markedly declined since 2004.

Orascom's investment will cover network infrastructure and license fees for the first three years "to rapidly deploy a high quality network and offer voice, data and value added services at accessible prices to the Korean people," the statement said.

The deal "is in line with our strategy to penetrate countries with high population and low penetration by providing the first mobile telephony services," said Naguib Sawiris, Orascom Telecom's chairman and CEO.

It operates networks in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tunisia and Zimbabwe and previously had a business in Iraq.

North Korea, which carried out an underground nuclear test in 2006, has been negotiating with the United States and other countries to receive aid and political concessions in exchange for abandoning its nuclear programs.

The country has also taken some steps to liberalize its dilapidated economy in recent years, and it courts foreign investment.

Alex Kuznetsov, an analyst at Bear Stearns in London, estimates that North Korea will achieve 20 percent wireless penetration in 2012 and Orascom will begin turning a profit on the venture two years before that.

Though Kuznetsov acknowledged that political risk is "quite a serious factor" in North Korea, Orascom's background in other emerging markets suggests it can succeed.

Orascom Construction Industries, also of Egypt, said in July last year that it signed a deal with a state-owned North Korean trading firm to acquire a 50 percent stake in a local cement company near Pyongyang.

Lafarge SA of France announced in December it was acquiring Orascom's cement businesses. Lafarge shareholders approved the deal this month.

Via [Mlive]

Divona customers were deprived today from using the phone, the VoIP goes through dedicated connections with the customer down since this morning involving Tunisie Telecom, our Divona insider is hoping that the outage would be fixed within one hour. In the meanwhile all Wimax users are connected and can enjoy their Internet and Network up and running. Many customers prefers to get all their bandwidth through the Wimax to reduce the impact of the frequent issues in Tunisie Telecom T1 services.

NEW DELHI: Internet communication links for hundreds of millions of people in India and across the world were disrupted after an anchoring ship off Egypt's Alexandria coast damaged two submarine cables Sea-Me-We-4 and Flag on Wednesday morning.

Internet users faced a slowdown in service with many websites remaining either totally inaccessible or taking a considerably long time to download.

While early on Thursday, reports of disruption appeared severe with ISP Association of India's president, R Chharia estimating almost 50% of net connections in the country to be down, damage control efforts by companies saw a near complete restoration of services by late evening.

"Since internet is now the nerve centre for business and communication, our real concern is focussed on lack of access for users. This episode points to a need for superior disaster management of the IT ecosystem," says Naresh Ajwani, president, Sify Ltd.
However, the situation did manage to take a favourable turn.

"Our teams worked all night to restore services to 80% of our customers and the balance will be taken care of by the end of the day", said Manoj Kohli, president, Bharti Airtel.

Sea-Me-We-4 is a 20,000 km optical submarine cable network which links the 14 countries of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy, Tunisia, Algeria and France.

Bharti Airtel, India's leading telecom services firm and Tata-owned VSNL are part of the consortium that owns Sea-Me-We-4 while the Reliance Group owns Flag.

According to Kohli, customers will now only face a latency problem of about 700 milliseconds, but no disruption of services.

"Its been an extraordinary event, its impact has been most severe in India and the Middle East", admits David Nishball, president, enterprise services, Bharti Airtel.

According to Nishball, services to voice customers, private leased circuits across the Atlantic and private networks of corporates have been completely restored.

"However, IT customers have been severely impacted. We have rerouted them to the Pacific route from the Atlantic route, so there is some congestion", he says.

However, Nishball says that customer experience should see a dramatic improvement over the next 24 hours owing to efforts to put up additional circuits on the cable network to increase the capacity of the highway to accommodate the additional traffic.

Via [The Times of India]

It has a while that the government is making the access to the Wimax to the provider a bit easier under pressure -despite Divona monopoly- many other compagnyare being negotiating the terms of permit to provide Wimax for the masses, a Tunisiana insider reported that it should take time before that the they would be able to enter the market within many other corporations as ISPs, government companies and telecommunications operators.

The deployment of the Wimax would be a piece of cake for Tunisia, because the back office have all the architecture home-made and ready as they have provided the service through many of the Orascom offices around the arab world.

In fact, as usual Tunisiana is counting on Nokia to make that happen as much as Cisco, I have even heard of USB Wimax cards from Alcatel, but it may lead to an other permit and negotiations.

A new era of communication is getting prepared in secrecy, the Wireless market would provide boradhand access to millions of people instantly all around the country without being aware of where they are.

TORONTO (WiMAX Day). Redline Communications Group announced that it will supply its RedMAX products to Divona Telecom in Tunisia. Redline said in a press release today that it has worked with Divona during a three-month trial. Divona now plans to build a WiMAX network over the next two years that will connect five major cities in Tunisia, including Tunis, Nabeul, Souse, Monastir and Sfax. According to M. Mohamed Garbouj, General Manager of Divona Telecom, the company already has several hundred customers using WiMAX now, and their plan is “to double [its] subscriber base every quarter for the next four years, exceeding our four-year ROI goal.” Divona Telecom is owned by Planet Tunisie and Monaco Telecom, itself a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless

The wimax is spreading around at constant rise of customers and speed, it seems that the future in communications in Tunisia is avout to boycot the cables despite the higher costs and risks, it seems that almost al the customers have asked service from Divona as Tunisie Telecom continue to offer primate non realistic service.

Via [Wimax Today]

Blogging has no secret for me and so is the IT, I have started this new blog dedicated to the Wirelss stuff in Tunisia beacuse I'm myslef involved and that the epedimic of the non wire crew is sprading around, and I won't miss this in all my life, I'll try to keep you updated about the things that happens over here and will show you how this new things works. have fun and don't forget to suscribe to the feed.

Dublin, Jan 25, 2008 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- ALVR | news | PowerRating | PR Charts -- Monaco Telecom, a Cable & Wireless affiliate, announced it is working with Alvarion, Cisco and Nokia to establish a Center of Excellence on Mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) in the Principality.

The initiative between the four companies will demonstrate the mobility and high-speed features of Mobile WiMAX 802.16e-2005. The new technology will allow customers to leverage a service and move freely while using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), streaming video and other Internet applications. The capability allows the network to move with the customer - enabling true mobility and improving the experience of the user.

In addition to showcasing personal broadband services, Alvarion's 802.16e-2005-based 4Motion solution will be demonstrated and is expected to reach a commercial level during 2008. The Cisco Broadband Wireless Gateway solution is a key component and part of Cisco WiMAX portfolio providing an open WiMAX Access Service Network (ASN) gateway functionality. This latest expansion of Cisco's Service Exchange Framework enables Monaco Telecom to support another access technology. Nokia will contribute with its expertise in mobility and an Internet Tablet compatible with WiMAX 2.5 GHz.

As an active fixed WiMAX provider with an effective deployment running in Tunisia, Monaco Telecom was an ideal partner for such experimentation. Based on its technical knowledge and customer experience, Monaco Telecom intends to improve its expertise in what is a greenfield area.

"The WiMAX strategy and network architecture are essential for us as a global operator to maintain competitive edge and maximize WiMAX capabilities. We envision the Center of Excellence as the manifestation of best-of-breed WiMAX, and with an ultimate result of implementation in different networks around the world", said Denis Martin, CEO of Monaco Telecom.

"Working with Alvarion, Cisco and Monaco Telecom is a great step towards making Mobile WiMAX available for consumers and fits perfectly with our strategy of offering a broad and innovative portfolio of devices." said Ari Virtanen, Vice President, Convergence Products, Nokia.

"We are excited about working with Cisco, Monaco Telecom and Nokia," said Tzvika Friedman, president and CEO of Alvarion. "We are continuing implementations with leading device manufactures as Nokia, and global operators such as Cable & Wireless via Monaco Telecom. Cisco's Broadband Wireless Gateway can allow seamless integration with Nokia's WiMAX-enabled devices; IOT is part of our OPEN WiMAX approach to increase innovation and services for the benefit of our customers."

"Broadband services are increasingly important to the lives of individuals and the economic development of many countries", said Larry Lang, Cisco vice president and general manager of the Services and Mobility Business Unit. "We are seeing significant demand for the delivery of Internet access and Internet Protocol-based services over wireless access technologies, and this opportunity to work with Monaco Telecom, Nokia and Alvarion with WiMAX is an exciting example of how this demand can be effectively met."

Via [Trading Markets]