Alfa, MTC terms renewed

Cabinet renews management agreements with the two mobile network operators upon new conditions

The Cabinet agreed, on January 31, to renew for one more year the contracts of Alfa and MTC Touch for the management of the two mobile phone networks, Mic1 and Mic2.

The interim management agreements of the two network operators timed out on February 1.

The two firms Alfa - managed by Orascom Telecom - and MTC - managed by Zain - approved the amendments the Ministry of Telecommunications had made to the terms of the agreement. According to the Minister of Telecommunications Nicolas Sehnaoui, the proposed changes altered the structure of the management contract.

Sehnaoui said that income earned by Alfa and MTC is divided into fixed and variable income. He said that in the new contract terms the ministry reduced the fixed income and set forth 12 objectives which the operators must achieve in order to obtain the variable profit.

The objectives include expanding the capacity of Alfa and MTC's call centers to match the huge number of subscribers. Some of the objectives are part of the infrastructure expansions included in the network upgrading plan which Sehnaoui announced last December. Among these is the purchasing of 400 stations to be installed in areas with weak reception, 20 mobile stations to provide backup network connectivity, and 120 repeaters to strengthen reception in areas of weak coverage. Also among the objectives is the establishing of a national roaming service and an online platform for local mobile applications.