Towards the Development of internet in Tunisia: highlights on the importance of acting according to a clear strategy that needs to be adopted in the future for the development of Internet and broadband in Tunisia.

1. Republic of Tunisia
Ministry of Industry and Technologies
Tunisian Internet Agency
Towards the Development of
Broadband Internet in Tunisia
New Challenges, Opportunities and Perspectives

2. Broadband market actors need an evolution
Consumers / End users
Hexa.
Tunet
Orange Tunisie
Gnet
Tunisiana
ATI/CNI
Retail services
Tunisie Telecom/Topnet
ATI
Wholesale
Active infrastructure (Bandwidth)
ONT
Wholesale
Passive infrastructure
 Market opening strategy needs a serious update,
 Wholesale market requires a particular attention, …
2 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

3. Key events: Nascent competition
 Before 1995: Telecom totally controlled by the Government/Administration.
 1995: Creation of Tunisie Telecom as a government establishment.
 June 1996: Creation of ATI, the Tunisian Internet Agency.
 1997: Internet market opening to competition: starting with 2 private ISPs and creation
of public Internet communities (INBMI, CCK, IRESA, etc.).
 2000: Authorization of 3 new ISPs.
Internet ATI
 New regulatory framework: Internet as a value  A government controlled company: Tunisie
added telecommunication service. Telecom 27%, IRSIT 10%, ATCE 13%, etc.
 Mostly narrowband Internet Access (dialup  A central Internet authority (one-stakeholder
more than 99%). governance model/Regulator): Authorization
 Monopoly in terms of telecom infrastructure regime, Domain Name policy, etc.
(local & international).  Internet content control via caching systems,
 Partial competition in term of Internet service  ISP for public institutions and government
providing but tariffs fixed by the Minister. controlled companies.
ISP: Internet Service Provider
3 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

4. Key events: Market liberalization
 2001: New Telecommunication Act (law n°2001—1) and creation of a new
Telecommunication Regulation Authority, INT – www.in%.tn.
 2002: Mobile Market opening to competition (2G license): Tunisiana.
 2004: Data market opening to competition: Divona Telecom.
 2006: Starting of Tunisie Telecom privatization: Tecom-DIG controls 35%.
 2008: Amendment of the Telecommunication Act (law n°2008-1).
 2009: Fixed market opening to competition and new 3G mobile license:
Orange Tunisie.
 2010: Tunisie Telecom got a 3G mobile license and bought Topnet.
 2011: Tunisiana controls 49% of Tunet, what else?
National strategy for ICT development, Information Society, WSIS, IGF, …, bla bla bla
Best practices regarding Internet development have been simply ignored.
4 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

5. So what about ATI?
Oh Easy! “Just let it be Ammar404 and everything gonna be better”.
 Tunisie Telecom still owns 37% of the capital of ATI,
 As Tunisie Telecom is not 100% state owned and according to
law n°1989—9, ATI could not be a government controlled company,
 ATI remains under the control of the government as an authority that
controls the Internet: “No matter what, any Internet traffic must be routed
by ATI equipments”,
 The Ben Ali regime subsidized the development of a sophisticated
censorship system including DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) equipments,
content categorization database with required expensive support and
maintenance contracts, etc.
 Any initiative to restructure ATI and update the Internet regulatory
framework have been ignored or simply blocked.
5 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

6. Internet before the revolution #Ammar404
 Regulatory framework: completely obsolete for Internet.
 Governance: inadequate mono-stakeholder model centralized
on ATI – “so what about transparency and Neutrality ?”
 Competition: weak and requires urgent actions especially
regarding the wholesale market,
 Broadband infrastructure: Relatively good compared to our
neighbors especially international connectivity,
 Services and contents: poor hosting capabilities, lack of
innovation, severe control by the Ben Ali regime, etc.
 Freedom and openness: Inappropriate censorship,
 Privacy: In practice not guaranteed at least for Internet.
6 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

7. What about Internet after the revolution #Jan14 ?
 Kill Ammar404 and destroy ATI ? No !
 Build a new Internet regulatory framework Yes !
 Ignore best practices in term of Internet Governance ? No !
 Stop censorship and encourage free Internet ? Yes !
 Forget about a Tunisian IXP (Internet Exchange Points) ? No !
 Promote e-content hosting and build new datacenters ? Yes !
 Encourage tunisian cctld .tn and .‫? ﺗﻮﻧﺲ‬ Yes !
 Promote innovation and deploy more plateforms ? Yes !
 Enhance quality of service ? Yes !
 …
7 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

8. Internet traffic is increasing
 Maximum Internet traffic bandwidth (Sept 2010):
 Traffic increase by 35% in 1Q-11 compared 4Q-10.
 Traffic increase by 60% in Sept. 2011 compared to Sept. 2010.
 Local traffic is increasing but it is just 5% of the international one.
8 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

9. Ammar404 for an increasing Internet traffic
 ATI with the financial support of the government maintained
Internet filtering systems.
 2009 – 2011: support + Smartfilter licence, 0,450 million TND/year.
3,6 million TND
)&$
%($
%#$ 1,6 million TND
2,5 million
1 million TND%&$
(*)
TND is required
'#$ '%$
to implement
!"#$%
'&$
global filtering.
!#$
1,3 million TND (*) !&$
!&$
#$ %"#$
!"#$
&$
'&&($ '&&*$ '&&+$ '&!&$ '&!!$,*$-.$
(*) Support and smartfilter licence included.
/012341$56$78912819$923:;$<38=>?=9@$
9 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

10. New challenges & opportunities
 Change ATI towards a neutral and transparent IXP,
 Transform the filtering equipments or offer a web filtering SAAS
platform (managed by the end user),
 Foster new partnerships with Tunisian innovative SMEs as well
as multinational content providers: Video sharing platforms,
streaming (WebTV/WebRadio), high value added services and
applications, etc.
 Develop the 1st Tunisian open source mirrors:
 Already in see mirror.ati.tn: Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, Mozilla, etc.
 Coming soon: Sourceforge, Tor, etc.
 Push further the debate regarding Internet governance, freedom,
privacy and security.
 … “There is no TABOO subjects anymore for the new ATI”
10 The 3rd Arab Bloggers Meeting, October 3 – 6, 2011

11. follow us @ati_tn
Thanks …
Moez
Chakchouk,
Chairman
and
CEO
moez.chakchouk@a1.tn
−
twi%er.com/mchakchouk