Tunisia Way

The info-communication sector which witnesses, on a worldwide scale, a significant phase of development, on the structural level as from the point of view of services and networks, records, in Tunisia, remarkable progress.

Thanks to the clearsighted vision of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a strong impulse was given to the ICT sector as a large growth vector of economic development. The driving role that plays this sector in favor of the economic and social development sets it as one of the priorities of the governmental orientations within the framework of the Ninth Economic and Social Development Plan (1997-2001), which devotes nearly 1,5 billion Tunisian Dinars to investment in this sector while the Eighth Plan (1992-1996) has reserved 860 million Tunisian Dinars. Indeed, the Tunisian sector of technologies of communications currently records a remarkable growth and an overall dynamics.

I – A modern infrastructure

The telecommunications infrastructure, which is continuously in progress, is the basis of the development strategy of the sector.

I-1 A telephone network in constant growth:

• The total digitalization of the network was completed in June 1999
• 1,1 million subscribers in year 2000 (density of 12 lines for 100 inhabitants)
• 1.5 million subscribers at the end of 2001 (density of 15,4 lines for 100 inhabitants)
• A projected telephone density of 25 lines for 100 inhabitants in 2004.

I-2 The mobile communication network :

The mobile network (GSM) accounts more than 400 000 subscribers at the end of 2001 and has been extended to cover to the whole of the national territory and to carry its capacity to nearly 500 000 lines.

The choice of second operator GSM is currently in hand.

I-3 The national Backbone:

The national network of 6500 km optical fiber cables covers the whole country in the form of SDH loops articulated around 7 multi-service switches. This backbone allows the connection of various areas of the country, which were equipped with new broadband equipment.

The network also provides connection to the Internet for economic, university and educational institutions as well institutions for scientific research by reducing the costs of access and usage.