France Telecom (FT) and Mauritius Telecom (MT) are teaming up again, uniting their combined mobile and Internet services under the Orange brand and expanding services to local customers.
MT will rename its Cellplus and Telecom Plus subsidiaries, and along with the rebranding will offer some new services. For example, the Orange Zone plan will allow subscribers from the Indian Ocean islands -- Madagascar, Mayotte, La Reunion and Mauritius -- to pay up to 50 percent less for roaming services in the region. Other services including E-transfer, E-voucher or Magic numbers, which offers tariff reductions on user-selected numbers, are also being added to MT's catalogue.
MT's customers might have to wait a little longer for the drastic change in price structure that they had hoped would accompany Orange's arrival, but the operator is speeding up its Internet service with a 2M-bps offer at a price of around US$380. Service changes will affect up to 75,000 Internet customers (out of which a little bit more than 30,000 are broadband) and 555,000 mobile MT customers.
The cost of this renaming and packaging exercise is a closely guarded secret, as is the license fee that the Mauritian operator will have to fork out annually to Orange.
"The only thing I can say is that Orange participated largely in the cost of the launch of this change of names," said MT CEO Sarat Lallah at a press conference on Wednesday, where a number of officials spoke.
Eight years after FT took over 40 percent of the Mauritian operator, the partnership between the French and the Mauritians is going one step further.
"We want to explore the region. It would be very difficult to do it alone. But with a strong player like Orange, this becomes possible," said Dass Thomas, chairman of MT.
In addition, FT wants a stronger presence in Africa.
"Entering a new country always is an important thing. We're convinced MT will bring something to the Orange family," said Gilles Vaillant, FT's vice president for the region.
Didier Lombard, FT's director general, stressed the opportunity for MT. "Orange will open new horizons for MT by bringing simple, innovative and convergent products at accessible tariffs," Lombard said.
