Tunisia will launch an international tender soon for a fixed-line telecoms licence.

The news was published by Reuters, based on an article by Tunisian newspaper Le Quotidien.

This move comes upon a recommendation by the Tunisian President to speed up preparations so as to open up Tunisia’ s telecommunications sector.

A team charged with this project in the telecoms ministry is preparing an international tender to select a second fixed-line phone operator, thereby ending Tunisie Telecom’s monopoly.

State-controlled Tunisie Telecom still holds a monopoly in fixed-line services and controls 72 percent of the mobile market. Dubai’s Tecom holds a 35 percent stake in Tunisie Telecom after outbidding France’s Vivendi.

This is one of the best pieces of news I’ve heard in a long time, I can’t wait for this to come true and for Tunisie Telecom’s monopoly to end. Their service has been pretty mediocre when it comes to my case and their customer support is one of the worst I’ve ever had to deal with. I know a lot of other people who have the same problems as I do with Tunisie Telecom, but I’ll resist the temptation to generalize, even though maybe I should.
Anyway, the new company can count me as one of their first converts, if not even an evangelist.