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]

Many could not believe their eyes. here is Mr. Montasser Ouaili, CEO of Tunisie Télécom, as you've never seen!

Known to be singularly reserved, economical with words as if the fiber of the university dominated politics, Mr. Ouaili just to demonstrate that it can usefully play tribune-communicator.

The microphone in hand, without any memory aid, he improvises, aligns the data, provides programs, workshops, opportunities, responding on the fly to questions from reporters ...

New for the boss ... and the new for the company! Because the two products it has launched are nothing short of a response to two markets that are among the most promising. Elissa for young people under 25 years, with rates studied and exclusive techno, BLACKBERRY and for employers, managers, technophiles ... with a very high order, beyond the simple sense, beyond the vision of the market ... to seduction pure and simple.

Source [Web Manager Center]

It just looks like a pure and simple remake of the events held usually by Tunisiana.

The recent agreemnet between Tunisie telecom Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris:ALU)(NYSE:ALU), a network communications specialist, and Research In Motion Limited (RIM) (Nasdaq:RIMM) (TSX:RIM) have gained a lot of echoes all around the Media, as one of the most Business used devices the Black Berry is gaining a new markte without having to go through extra roaming fees. The BB berry was affordobale only for those who brought them overseas relying on Tunisiana for romaing but absolutely no technicla support.

At launch, TUNISIE TELECOM is to offer its customers the BlackBerry Pearl 8100, BlackBerry Pearl 8120, BlackBerry Curve 8320, BlackBerry 8800 and BlackBerry Bold 9000 smartphones, as well as service on BlackBerry Enterprise Server and BlackBerry Internet Service.

Source [Trading Markets]

To everyone in the region, a very happy and warm welcome to the BlackBerry world!

Source [Into Mobile]

please notice that This new service is till on test and having many issues and if you’re in Tunisia, your non Tunisie Telecom BB will certainly connect to TT a main romaing carrier, but won’t retrive any emails unless you switch it manuallay to Tunisiana.

The BlackBerry service is a solution launched by major operators in mobile networks. The success of this solution is mainly based on its relevance to the needs of users remain connected to their working environment outside his office (e-mail, calendar, contacts, databases, ...), with an exemplary customer experience and high quality service.

Two package are proposed:
a. Corporate BlackBerry is a solution for large enterprises equipped with internal mail server like Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and Novell GroupWise. Corporate Blackberry server serves as a link between the BlackBerry device, mobile networks and enterprise applications. By integrating the messaging and collaboration systems for the company, the server enables mobile users to access their e-mail, instant messaging and enterprise management tools to personal information. The application server will be installed in society.
Two packages are offered:
 Monthly fee of 20 MB (messaging and surfing the internet) to 45 DT TTC (4 millimes / Ko beyond);
 Monthly unlimited (email and web browsing) at 60 DT TTC;
The cost of installation and maintenance: Installation costs per user License
Activation of 5 to 15 lines DT 500 DT 300 TTC TTC
Activation of 20 lines and over 500 DT 250 DT TTC TTC

b. BlackBerry Pro allows access to email and type ISP to surf the web from the terminal. This service can receive messages automatically and includes accounts of various professional and personal messaging. It is fully hosted in the Network Operation Center "NOC" for RIM. The NOC allows the routing of e-mails, security management, and synchronization between the mail messaging terminal and the PC.
Two packages are offered:
 Monthly fee of 10 MB (email only) to 35 DT TTC (4 millimes / Ko beyond package);
 Monthly unlimited (email and web browsing) at 60 DT TTC;

Quote terminals
 BlackBerry 8100: 1000 DT TTC unity;
 BlackBerry 8800: 1300 DT TTC unity.

A discount of 20% is granted for a minimum order of 5 terminals.

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.