The monopolistic Vsat and Wimax provider Divona Telecom has officially changed its corporate name to orange Tunisia after winning a bid to provide exclusive 2G and 3G cell services becoming in the same time part of the French Telecom group with less than 50% shares as stipulated by the the Tunisian regulations.

The move was expected as part of the new marketing strategy of the company to introduce a well know brand rather than using an old Vsat and Wimax provider barely know or even creating a new brand from the mix.

Ornage France has many exclusive contracts allowing to distribute Black berry and Iphone a growing trends in the telecoms markets with the lack of support from Tunisia telecom and the inability of Tunisiana to market any phones locally other than the HTC.

Months ago, Divona did merge with its little sister compagny Planet a major Tunisian ISP with hundreds of sales shops and hundreds of technical support all over the country, Ornage Tunise will certainly benefit from this asset making it easier to distribute their goods in no time.

Divona telecom has also build a solid structure of Wimax with mostly 60% coverge in the tunisiana territory thus adding GSM repeaters on the Wimax tours already available would be an other benefit to spred its cellular coverge in a couple of months, already outsourced to Huwawei the Chinese telecommunication company doing business in Tunisia and other European partners as Satec.

Via [Tn Geeks]

A Tunisiana insider has reported trusty that Tunisiana has raised all the GSN engineer by 25% and gave them an exceptional bonus of 30,000 TND n made them sign a closed contract for 5 years.

The company seems preventing and overprotecting its brilliant staff from moving -if offered better salaries- to the next concurrent (Divona / orange Telecom).

The last news from Divona bakery were talking about French staff that will integrate the actual team for the GSM platform.

Tunis, July 13, 2009- A recent report by Pyramid Research dubbed “Communications Market in Tunisia”, says that Tunisia’s telecom market is set to become one of the fastest growing in the Africa Middle East market with total revenues estimated at 2,2 billion dollars by 2014 on the basis of a growth average of some 5,4% over the next five years.

The 24 page report provides an accurate analysis of Tunisia telecom sector: fixed and mobile sectors, WiMax, IPVT, and VoIP. It also provides an analysis of key trends, short term opportunities and risk factors.

The author of the report Sylvia Boguszweska, writes that event though Tunisia’s mobile and fixed penetration were among the highest in the region in 2008 with 82,1 % and 11,5% respectively, the low broadband penetration rate of some 2,2% shows a strong potential for growth.

“Although the market will contract in 2009, it will bounce back with broadband being the fastest growing among other significant market segments. Broadband services will be a considerable source of growth over the next five years with an annual growth of 15,1% between 2009 and 2014, producing an estimated revenue of 174 million dollars in 2014 up from 81 million dollars in 2008”, says the author of the report.

In June 2009, a consortium made up of France Telecom and Divona /Orange was awarded the third mobile license in Tunisia. The license covers both regular GSM services and 3G, as well as landline services.

The French consortium who made an offer of some 257,251 million dinars (137,647 million Euros), won the bid after being in competition with Turkey’s Turkcell.

There are currently two mobile telephone operators in the country, “Tunisie Telecom” and Orascom’s “Tunisiana”. In 2006, Tunisia Telecom opened up 35% of its capital to Dubai’s Tecom-DIG for some 1,8 billion Euros

It's now official. This is the group DIVONA / ORANGE France Telecom which is retained as a tenderer offering the best technology in the process of granting a license for a new telecommunications operator, said a communiqué of the Ministry of Technology Communication.

''In accordance with decree No. 2009-283 of 2 February 2009 laying down the conditions and procedures for the granting of a license to install and operate a public telecommunications network for the provision of services fixed telecommunications and mobile telecommunications services in 2nd and 3rd generation, the Ministry of Communication Technologies announces the following:

-The commission established by the decree above mentioned report has concluded its evaluation of tenders received in the framework of the international tender for the granting of a license to a new operator of fixed and mobile telecommunications 2G/3G .
-This process has enabled the Group to retain DIVONA / ORANGE - France Telecom, as a bidder who submitted the best technical offer. This assignment is tentative pending the completion of the conditions contained in the Rules of procedures of the international tender.

The entry into service of a new telecommunications operator aims to contribute to the revitalization of the landscape of the telecommunications sector (fixed, broadband internet and mobile), promotion of investment and employment as well as 'in support of the business climate in Tunisia.''