Mauritius--small but vibrant market: over the last two years, telecommunications in Mauritius have been marked by unprecedented change since the liberalisation of domestic and international telephone services. with 98% telephone penetration already reached, there might not appear to be much scope to develop locally, but operators are finding new ways and means to achieve growth. Nasseem Ackbarally reports from Port-Louis.

Until the end of 2002, the incumbent monopoly, Mauritius Telecom, provided all national and international telecommunications services on the island of Mauritius. Today, with two fixed-line, three mobile and several international operators, the entire environment has evolved.

However, just providing local telephone services is no longer a viable business model, so operators are offering new services to the 1.2m population and integrating their business more fully within the region.

MT

Mauritius Telecom (MT) was incorporated in 1992 with the merger of the national and international telecommunications entities. The government of Mauritius, the State Bank and the National Pensions Fund hold 60% shares of the company while the remaining 40% has, since 2000, been owned by France Telecom.

The government has agreed to the sale of 1% of MT shares to its 2,000 employees at a discount, recognising the company's phenomenal rate of development to become one of the island's top enterprises with revenues of $230m last year.

MT now provides fixed telephony, mobile, and ADSL broadband internet on its conventional copper-wire telephone network. It has more than 330,000 fixed-line customers, 555,000 mobile customers, 44,000 dial-up internet and 13,000 broadband customers. Regionally, it has expanded to also operate in Burundi and Madagascar.

"Mauritius Telecom is setting the pace in the region in the transition from narrowband to broadband and IP (Internet Protocol) services," says chairman Thomas Appalsamy. "It is gradually migrating its existing legacy network into a fully IP based one, which will enable it to offer integrated services on a single platform. This network is being rolled out for high performance data, voice and multimedia services leading the way towards Broadband Mauritius and the transformation of the country into a cyber-island as envisioned by the government."

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"In future," Appalsamy adds, "MT will need to increase its share of the market both locally and regionally through organic growth, acquisitions or joint-ventures which will enable us to enter new markets. It will also strive to maintain its investment focus on broadband, mobile and convergent services. This will need to be done without jeopardising our traditional revenue streams like fixed-line local telephony."

MT's CEO, Sarat Lallah agrees and envisages that the company will maintain its focus on keeping fixed-line revenue flows growing while increasing mobile penetration and broadband.

MT is presently engaged on two projects--the rebranding of internet and mobile services, and listing on the stock exchange. The rebranding envisages the use of the trade mark 'Orange' by Telecom Plus, a subsidiary of MT that offers internet services, and Cellplus, another subsidiary that offers mobile services. Some MT shares will be floated on the stock exchange in a bid to enable a greater number of people to benefit from one of the most profitable companies in Mauritius, MT says.

MTML 

Though the market is limited, two-year-old Mahanagar Telephone (MTML) boss Sanjay Garg finds plenty of scope for his company to grow on the international front where it is working to tap more business on the incoming and outgoing voice traffic and data side. "Lots of development will take place and lots of growth will happen. We are developing a market for our brands," he insists, adding that in the future "we will focus totally on mobile and data services".

MTML has just launched its high-speed mobile data service and Garg estimates that with value-added services and broadband coming into play its services will become more and more attractive. "We are going to offer television along with data services and other features which will make convergence of all services on one single carrier," he explains.

Emtel

Emtel Ltd became the first mobile telephony operation in the southern hemisphere when it was launched in 1989 and it has attracted around 400,000 customers. This pioneering telecoms enterprise was the result of a collaboration between two groups--Currimjee Jeewanjee, one of Mauritius' top companies, and Millicom International Cellular based in Luxembourg.

It was the first to introduce a prepaid mobile service in 1998, making cellphone communications accessible to virtually all segments of the population. The company's CEO Shyam Roy says: "Emtel introduced competition in 1989 when it was a completely monopolistic environment. We have helped drive prices down as well as improving service quality, and we plan to be the market leader very soon."

As for the future, Roy says. "We'll improve the business community's ability to access ITC services as well as offer the private consumer internet and data by introducing underground fibre optic connectivity within Mauritius by the end of this year. We'll also improve connectivity to the world by investing in undersea cable."

OTM 

The last economic pillar in Mauritius' ICT sector is outsourcing. Telecommunications of Mauritius (OTM), which also provides telephony services, already has a turnover of about $600m, with 190 company clients, according to Francois de Grivel its chairman. He believes the future is promising but insists that there could be a problem for Mauritius if it relies only on the SAFE cable. "That's why we are considering installing a new optic cable by 2010 with the participation of local stakeholders in the capital of this structure--the future is there," he remarks.

RELATED ARTICLE: Positioning Mauritius as a regional ICT hub 

The National ICT Strategic Plan (NICTSP) 2007-2011, launched by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications, details the strategies and a comprehensive action plan for the development of the ICT sector over the next five years.

The idea is to make the ICT sector the fifth pillar of Mauritius' economy and to position the country as a regional ICT hub.

This plan aims at providing the right environment for harnessing ICT to generate employment, improve the quality of life and create new opportunities for the socioeconomic development of Mauritius. As such, the plan identifies the primary targets to be achieved in two broad sectors: The 'Information Economy' and 'Information Society'.

The goals of Information Economy sector include a 7% contribution to GDP from offshore ICT export services; employment of at least 29,000 qualified individuals (90% being graduates in ICT disciplines); a doubling of the number of foreign investors; and signing memoranda of understanding for collaborative ICT ventures with countries in the region.

The objectives of the Information Society sector are to increase preference for ICT with at least 50% acceptance for services available online; a 20,000 household increase in personal computer (PC) ownership; providing 12,000 PCs in primary schools, providing 150 public internet access points across the island; providing internet connectivity and the networking of all primary and secondary schools; and increasing broadband penetration by at least 250,000.

Nasseem Ackbarally reports from Port-Louis.