Esis extension / Mediterranean Area / Regulatory Developments / Synthesis of Update Memos 2

During the last quarter (July – September 1999) there have been many developments within numerous Mediterranean countries.

Change has occurred in all the groups of countries identified in the first report in relation to the opening of their telecommunications sectors :

These changes reflect the fact that the development of telecommunications and other information technologies are considered to be key elements promoting economic and social development.

The priorities depend on the degree of development in each country. We can note for example :

	Regulatory decisions	Governmental programs	Market forces
Israel	Opening of the telecommunications market on June 1999		-Basic telephone services tariff decrease -Fierce competition between mobile operators leading to an important decrease of the tariff -Pressures from Internet users on the historical operator Bezeq to provide lower Internet access tariff (Bezeq proposed a fixed packaged as it exists in the USA : an additional monthly fee (10 $) for an unlimited Internet access between 18 :00 p.m. and 8 :00 a.m.
Turkey	Turkish Grand National Assembly made a change in the constitution to allow the use of international referees in disputes arising from contracts involving international partners. It is expected that this change will promote foreign investment in several sectors in Turkey including telecommunications.		Entry of major industrial, financial and media groups into the Internet market as ISP. Major banks include Garanti Bankasi, major industrial groups include the Sabanci Group which acquired Turk Nokta Net, a leading ISP.
Morocco	June 1999 : attribution of a second GSM licence to Medi Telecom : Telefonica (39,5%), Portugal Telecom (39,5%), Moroccan Bank of International Commerce (20%), the Moroccan group Akwa (11%) and the Moroccan Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion (8%). The licence was acquired for 11 billion Dirhams or 1,08 billion Euros. The new licence is valid for 14 years, with an exclusivity period for the next 4 years.
Jordan	A new licence for data transmission was issued to Maxxnet.
Tunisia		September 1999 : the Ministry of Communications initiated a campaign of sensibility of companies regarding Internet. Connection of secondary schools to Internet.
Palestine		Several projects announced by Paltel, among them : - expansion of the fixed public network (deployment of 200 000 fixed telephone lines), - development of public Internet access
Syria		- Internet connections have been extended by STE to the private and the public sectors, but not to individuals. The national backbone is still controlled by STE. - Implementation of a pilot GSM network - Implementation of a pilot paging network.
Algeria	TDA, Algerian Tele diffusion, Gecos, BMG International, Ornet, Imtiage Technology and Icosnet received licences of Internet Service Providers.		The increase of the number of ISPs is to impact telephone tariff : the national operator will probably reduce telephone tariffs.

Most of countries have announced plans to promote Internet and mobile services. Nevertheless, they are facing a lot of difficulties due to the bad quality of their national telecommunications networks, high communications tariffs and equipment costs (mobile phones and micro-computers for Internet). These constitute very strong barriers to development.

Countries such as Morocco and Turkey have begun an important liberalisation process, which includes the opening of sectors to foreign operators and capital. This appears essential to the rapid up-grading and deployment of networks and services.