5G will make its official entry into Tunisia in 2024. Corridor noise speaks of the launch of the call for tenders for the granting of the 5G operating license to telecom operators in September 2023.
While nothing is official yet, the operators have started preparations with the installation of new submarine cables and a general fibering of their network. On the side of the National Frequency Agency (ANF), it is the last straight line in terms of spectrum allocation. Nizar Ben Neji’s department is putting the final touches to the next 5G call for tenders.
In this series of articles “Tunisia, on the way to 5G”, THD will present the preparations of Tunisia to launch its 5G as well as the challenges that the various actors will have to solve in order to succeed in the transition to all 5G and prepare the ground for 6G (expected for 2030).
In comparison with the countries of North Africa (Morocco and Egypt) Tunisia is beginning to show a considerable delay in the launch of the license, not to mention our neighbors on the northern shore of the Mediterranean (Europe ).
Even if the exact contours of this call for tenders that the Ministry of Communication Technologies intends to launch are not yet well defined, it is nevertheless believed that the public authorities will adopt a rather original approach to encourage telephone operators to buy the license despite the disastrous economic situation of the country.
According to our sources, the license would be granted with a first year of testing. That is to say that at the start of 2024, operators should pay an advance on the price of said license and will have all of 2024 to install and commercially operate 5G as they wish, in the places they wish and without coverage or sharing obligation. However, they will have to pay the rest of the price of the license in 2025. As a result, this first year of testing will allow them:
1- earn money quickly in lucrative areas (especially business districts and high-income residential areas)
2- to gently push subscribers and therefore Tunisians to adopt the higher speeds of 5G more quickly
3- to encourage the transition of 2G/3G mobile customers still resistant to change to 5G in order to accelerate the 3G shutdown process (read our article ) and why not… 2G as is the case in Europe (read our article ).
The increase in speed expected with 5G and the encouragement of consumers to use even more mobile data will, in fact, be a boon for the State and a means of bailing out its empty coffers.
Do we still need to remember that “ for every thousand new broadband connections, we create, on average, 80 new jobs. Better still: each time the penetration rate of broadband Internet increases by 10%, GDP grows by 1% ”, according to an Ericsson study published on the eve of the launch of 4G. As for the impact of 5G, and still according to a more recent study by the Swedish equipment manufacturer , “Improved rural 5G coverage could result in a long-term increase of up to 1.8% in the GDP contribution of agriculture to the country’s economy. 5G will also promote sustainable farming methods, increase efficiency and reduce agricultural waste. In addition to the economic benefits, 5G can also reduce climate impact, increase social inclusion, well-being and tackle the digital divide in areas where the availability of fixed infrastructure is low” .
According to a study by the telecoms regulator (National Telecommunications Authority – INT), until December 2022, 62% of mobile terminals in circulation in Tunisia are 4G compatible, against 10% 3G compatible and 20% which only support 4G. 2G.
More than 8.6 million smartphones are in circulation in Tunisia (+1.8% compared to December 2021) against four million simple phones and 130,000 tablets. Also according to the INT, 86% of smartphone owners have subscribed to a mobile data offer, ie an average of seven out of ten Tunisians.
It should also be noted that according to estimates, 5% of 4G smartphones in circulation in Tunisia are 5G compatible and ready to switch to this new network. These are distributed as follows: 42% are from the Apple brand, 37% Samsung, 11% Xiaomi and finally Oppo with 4%.
As for fixed data, the INT figures covering ADSL, VDSL, Fiber Optic, LTE-TTD subscriptions (4G on the 3.5 Ghz band marketed in fixed Boxes) and 4G Box data (with packages of very large downloads) indicate a significant increase in this type of consumption in recent months, boosted by TV over IP (particularly football matches); we went from 1.5 million fixed data customers in January 2022 to 1.7 million customers in January 2023.
Better still: more and more Tunisians seem to be subscribing to subscription offers above 20 Mbps (ie VDSL and LTE/TDD since the OF is still limited in terms of coverage).
Market indicators do not lie: Tunisians are ready for 5G, especially for its adoption for the use of landlines called Fixed Wireless Access (FWA).
All this will not be without new challenges. Indeed, faced with this next boom in bandwidth consumption, especially with 2K and 4K (very high definition) multimedia content, distribution networks will quickly be saturated, and time is running out… In the next article, we will focus on the preparations of each operator on the network side.
