Rising demand for high speed and digitalisation in Africa attracts new investors

Orange will invest $575.6m in Morocco over the next three years

photo_camera PHOTO/ARCHIVO - Orange

Over the next three years Morocco will receive an investment of 5.69 billion dirhams ($575.6 million) to be made by telecommunications company Orange Maroc over the next three years. The aim of the investment is to meet the high demand for high-speed internet services and to encourage the digitalisation process that is beginning on the continent.

This is the eighth agreement signed between the company and the Moroccan government. Through this contract, the company is committed to supporting the digitisation of economic sectors in all regions of the Alawi kingdom, in addition to promoting the creation of new jobs for the country's citizens.

In this way, Orange is continuing its process of developing and strengthening telecommunications infrastructures in the country. For the coming years, the company has indicated that it has a plan to accelerate the creation of 4G and 5G networks in the Moroccan territory, in addition to the construction of FTTH (Fiber Of The Home) fibre optic infrastructures. According to the French company in a statement, these investments will allow it to "continue its efforts to digitise and automate processes in order to develop new products and services". Thanks to the Orange company's multi-million dollar investments and efforts, Orange Maroc has repeatedly managed to position itself as the fastest fixed network provider in Morocco, underlining its commitment to providing a quality service.

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This new agreement reached by Orange and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco marks a further step forward in Morocco's very high-speed development strategy, which aims to ensure high-speed connectivity to all strata of society while accelerating the digital transformation process. In early May, Orange announced new investments of Dh35 billion expected to arrive between 2021 and 2025. These new capital inflows are in addition to the Dh105 billion that the multinational has already disbursed in investments in the Moroccan kingdom since it began operations in 1999 under the name Medi Telecom.

"With this 8th convention, Orange Morocco demonstrates its ongoing commitment to the development of the Kingdom's telecommunications networks, with the aim of responding to the continuous growth in traffic and continuing to offer a high quality customer experience," the multinational stressed, adding that this new investment should enable the company to reinforce its success in the Moroccan telecommunications market, in which it already holds 33.5% of the shares compared to 38.46% for Maroc Telecom and 27.99% for Inwi, its main competitors.

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Optical fibre will reach every corner of Morocco

The North African country has set itself the goal of extending broadband to the whole of its national territory. Currently, the number of households connected to high speed is estimated at only 200,000. This is a far cry from what was expected two years ago, which is why the Kingdom is redoubling its efforts to extend the reach of high speed. However, there are currently various administrative and bureaucratic obstacles in Morocco that are slowing down the process of replacing copper lines with fibre cables to bring broadband to its territory.

In addition to this difficulty, Maroc Télécom is not in favour of other operators installing fibre optic cables, as this would force them to share their infrastructures with their competitors. Maroc Télécom has an easier time than others in implementing broadband because it already has kilometres of copper cables spread throughout Morocco, which allows it to reduce civil engineering costs when installing new infrastructure. As a result, there is a blockage caused by unclear legislation on infrastructure sharing by competing companies.

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