Issued by: GCIS
The Sudanese government has expressed strong interest in forging ties with South Africa for the development of its recently liberalised local telecommunications market, and gave full support to Minister Jay Naidoo's African Connection Rally which arrived in the country yesterday afternoon.
Sudanese Minister of Information and Culture, Ghazi Saladien and Minister of Communications and Roads, Elhadi Bushra, met Minister Naidoo on his arrival from Egypt at Dongla in northern Sudan yesterday afternoon. They briefed Minister Naidoo of Sudan's growing democracy and telecommunications developments.
Local and national telecommunication and Internet services are now open to competitive private sector investment. The regulator is expecting companies to apply for licenses to operate in any of these service areas.
Fees range from 2%-5% of revenues for a telecommunication or Internet service license, which decreases by 50% when renewed. The fee is usually at the lower end of the scale in rural areas to encourage investment in the less profitable locations.
The country's telecommunication's services suffered major setbacks in the last two decades due to lack of maintenance by the government-owned monopoly. In 1994, the government formed a partnership with the private sector, establishing Sudatel to handle Sudan's telecommunications. The government owns 68,8% of Sudatel with the remainder in private sector hands. Today, Alcatel, Siemens, American company STS and Daewoo have a presence in Sudan and there is also a separate GSM mobile cellular telephone operator - Mobitel.
Prior to the establishment of the regulatory authority - The National Telecommunications Council - in 1996, a concession was granted to Mobitel 5 years as the sole supplier of mobile cellular services, and Sudatel was given a 5 year franchise on international services.
Secretary General of the NTC, Mohamed Omar, said in Khartoum today that the government plans to gradually divest itself of most of its remaining shareholding in Sudatel and will only retain a minority share, probably about 25%. It also expects that Sudatel will withdraw from the provision of public telephone services, leaving the market open to the introduction of phone shops and telecenters. There are no restrictions on the foreign ownership of telecommunication services.
The telecommunication network has improved substantially over the last few years (since 1994) and the entire network is expected to be digital before the end of the year. Sudatel has almost finished laying about 3000km of fibre optic cable linking major cities such as Port Sudan, Atbara, Khartoum, Sennar, Kosti, Kasala and Gedaref with several add/drop points in many rural areas along the line. A fibre-based metropolitan area network linking the 15 exchanges in Khartoum is already in place.
Sudatel's telephone density target is 1 phone for every 100 people by the end of year, up from 1 telephone for 400 in 1994. Over one thousand pay phones were installed in 1998 in cities such as Khartoum and Medina. These are also expected to make their way to rural areas.
Sudatel is also linking isolated population centres using a VSAT network called SUDOSAT that has over thirty earth stations in different remote areas. Some smaller cities now have state-of-the-art wireless local loop and VSAT connections with links to hubs in Khartoum.
Sudan is the largest country in Africa, covering an area of 2,505,805sq kilometres, making 8,3% of Africa. It is home to 597 tribes, with nearly 115 languages between three major groups. The country went through a long period of sporadic civil wars. Serious efforts at establishing peace and unity made headway in April 1996 after the country's rival factions agreed to a peace charter. Minister Saladien stressed Sudan's commitment to the charter to ensure continuing peace and stability.
See the African Connection Web site for further background information on Sudan and on the African Connection Rally.
Contact: Ayman Elamin Sudatel aymanali@hotmail.com tel: 249 11 773930 fax: 249 11 782 322
Mr. Awad Elkarim Widaa, Secretary General, Ministry of Roads and Communications, tel: +249 11 779 493 fax:+249 11 780 507 postal address:
PO Box 1130, Khartoum, Sudan.