SONITEL () was the Nigerien national telephone and telecommunications carrier from the late 1990s until the mid-2010s. It was created on 20 March 1997 as a fusion of the telecommunications arm of

Nigerien Posts and Telecommunications This article is about the demographic features of the population of Niger, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. The largest ...

() and the STIN (), which controlled

land line A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which us ...

telephone connections abroad. The process had begun with the passage of a law aimed at the privatisation of telecommunications (''Ordonnance N°96-031 du 11 juin 1996''), and was part of a larger process of internationally led privatisation of Niger's once large parastatal sector. SONITEL had the government of Niger as a majority share holder. Following the 1999 Constitution of the Fifth Republic of Niger, SONITEL was to be privatised, and in 2001, after an unsuccessful round of offerings, the majority of the companies shares were sold. In December 2001, 51% of the company was purchased by the Sino- Libyan consortium DATAPORT, made up of ZTE and the Libyan LAAICO company. The ZTE majority consortium reportedly paid 11.8 billion FCFA, beating out FranceTelecom and

SONATEL Sonatel ''()'' is the principal telecommunications provider of Senegal. The company is active in fixed line telephony, mobile telephony, internet service, television and corporate telecommunications. The company is involved in the construction ...

. The government of Niger continued to hold 34.11% of the company, with private investors taking 11%, the 1300 employees of SONITEL holding 3%, and France Câbles & Radio – who had been a stakeholder in STIN, 0.89%.SONITEL:Historique
In 2004, SONITEL's mobile phone arm was opened up to face foreign competition, but SONITEL continued to hold a monopoly on Internet communication, the

.ne .ne is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Niger. Unrelated to the .ne top-level domain, "ne" is sometimes used as a second-level domain within other country-code domains, in which registrants may register second-level domains ...

name registry, and international fixed line voice communication. Following mobile phone competition, SONITEL was widely criticised for poor performance, faced a series of protests and strikes by its workers over pay and conditions,Souley Adji
Labour and Society Programme: Globalization and union strategies in Niger. International Labour Organisation. DP/122/2000
and accumulated debts of 40 billion FCFA despite a 140% increase in user fees.Niger: Télécoms Sonitel renationalisée
AFP. 13 February 2009 On 13 February 2009, the government of Niger announced it was "canceling" the privatisation of SONITEL and its subsidiary SahelCom (which handled mobile communications), although it hoped to eventually re-privatise the company. The Minister of Communications stated that the process had "failed", and the government would retain a 100% share in SONITEL, and form a new administration of the company. An attempt to sell both companies to Libya's sovereign wealth fund in 2011 failed because of the beginning of the First Libyan Civil War. The nationalisations were completed in 2012. On 28 September 2016, the Nigerien government merged SONITEL with SahelCom to create Niger Telecoms.

References

CAHIER DES CHARGES DE LA LICENCE DE TÉLÉPHONIE FIXE & CAHIER DES CHARGES LICENCE TELEPHONIE MOBILE
2001 agreements by which SONITEL was privatised, posted by the Autorité de Régulation Multisectorielle (ARM), the body which carries out Nigerien government privatisation and regulation of privatised industries. Retrieved 2009-02-18. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sonitel Companies of Niger

See also

References