Orange beats Turkcell to unified licence

According to TelecomPaper, Tunisia’s Ministry of Communications has selected a consortium comprising France Telecom/Orange and Tunisian VSAT operator Divona as winner of a 15-year fixed and mobile telecoms licence. The report says the French-led consortium presented the best technical offer, ahead of rival grouping led by Turkcell. The award is provisional until all conditions are met under the terms of the international tender. This will include the two consortium members forming a new Tunisian-registered company which is majority owned by Divona parent Investec. The winner is expected to start offering mobile services no later than January 2010. It will compete against Tunisie Telecom, which had over a million fixed line subscribers and 4.35 million mobile customers at the end of March 2009, and Orascom subsidiary Tunisiana, with 4.3 million mobile subscribers.