3.5 Cote d'Ivoire Telecommunications
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Most segments of the telecommunications market have continued to flourish during previous crises which started in 1999. The sector is dominated by mobile telephony, with South Africa’s MTN and France Telecom-owned Orange leading the market. The aggressive launches of a third and a fourth GSM network in 2006/07 by Moov (owned by Etisalat of the UAE) and KoZ (operated by the Lebanese Comium Group) accelerated the already fast growth and have pushed mobile market penetration well above the African average.

A fifth mobile network was launched by Libya’s LapGreen in late 2008 under the name Oricel (also referred to as Green Network or GreenN). However, the company may become a casualty of the events in Libya in 2011.

UAE-based Warid Telecom is standing by to enter the market as the sixth player pending problems with frequency spectrum allocation, and Nigeria’s Globacom has also been awarded a licence.

Globacom has announced it will land its Glo-1 international submarine fibre optic cable in the country which will bring down the cost of international bandwidth. In addition, several other cables are scheduled to reach Cote d’Ivoire in the coming years. The Internet and broadband market has remained underdeveloped due to the high cost of international bandwidth, caused by a monopolisation of access to the SAT-3/WASC international fibre optic submarine cable, the only one currently serving the country. Despite these obstacles, Cote d’Ivoire has become West Africa’s third largest Internet market after Nigeria and Ghana, with services superior to those in many other African countries, including ADSL with up to 8Mb/s. WiMAX and EV-DO wireless broadband services are also available, some of them at very competitive prices.

Fixed-line incumbent Cote d’Ivoire Telecom (CI-Telecom) was majority-privatized in 1997 when France Telecom bought a controlling stake. A second national operator (SNO), Arobase was licensed before the civil war but only got off the ground in 2006 and was then acquired by MTN. Both companies are rolling out CDMA2000 1x fixed-wireless systems and fibre optic backbone networks and also control leading ISPs in the country.

Third generation mobile broadband services have not yet been introduced but are expected in the near future as a means for the mobile operators to broaden their service portfolio and combat the rapidly decreasing average revenue per user (ARPU) in the voice market.

For information on Cote d'Ivoire Telecommunications company contact details, please see the following link4.2.9 Cote d'Ivoire Additional Service Provision Contact List

Telephone Services

Is there an existing landline telephone network?

(Yes / No)

Yes

 

Does it allow international calls?

(Yes / No)

 

Yes

On average, number and length of downtime periods

One week in Abidjan – one month in countryside townships.

Mobile phone providers (List)

Yes, ORANGE, MTN, MOOV, COMIUM, CAFÉ MOBILE

Estimated availability and coverage

(Approximate percentage of national coverage)

ORANGE (90 %) MTN (90 %) MOOV(70 %) COMIUM(70 %) CAFÉ MOBILE (30 %)

Telecommunication Regulation

Regulations

Regulations on usage or import of:

Yes / No

Regulating Authority

Satellite

Yes

Abidjan - Marcory Anoumanbo 18 BP 2203 Abidjan 18 +225 20 34 43 73/74

HF Radio

Yes

n/a

UHF/VHF/HF radio: handheld, base and mobile

Yes

n/a

UHF/VHF repeaters

Yes

n/a

GPS

Yes

n/a

VSAT

Yes

n/a

Individual Network Operator Licenses Required

  •  n/a

Frequency Licenses Required

  •  n/a

Existing Humanitarian Telecoms Systems

Existing UN Telecommunication Systems

Organisations 

WFP

OCHA

PNUD

VHF frequencies

Yes

Yes

Yes

HF frequencies

Yes

Yes

Yes

Repeaters

(Locations)

Yes

Yes

Yes

VSAT

Yes

Yes

Yes

For information on Cote d'Ivoire Telecommunications company contact details, please see the following link4.2.9 Cote d'Ivoire Additional Service Provision Contact List

For additional information on Cote d'Ivoire Telecommunications, please see the following document: Cote d'Ivoire Telecommunications Information

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