OMT: The Leading Alternative Operator in the French Overseas Departments and Regions

Outremer Telecom (OMT) offers a full range of fixed line, mobile, and Internet services to residential and business customers in the French overseas departments and regions. The company is seeking to increase its market share in the French West Indies, which includes Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana, and in the Indian Ocean, which includes Reunion and Mayotte.

OMT has developed its own telecommunications network in order to lead the growing telecom market in these regions. The company’s brand “Only” is well-known in all the French overseas departments and regions.

In June 2006, ZTE began supplying 2G mobile infrastructure equipment to OMT and helped OMT extend its network in Reunion and Mayotte. This paved the way for further cooperation between OMT and ZTE. Today, ZTE has become the most important partner of OMT. The fruitful collaboration between both sides is driving OMT's fast development, and OMT is now the most competitive operator in the French overseas departments and regions.

ZTE: A Valuable Partner for OMT

Prior to 2005, Alvarion was OMT’s main mobile network equipment vendor. It had constructed mobile networks for OMT in French Martinique, French Guyana, and Guadeloupe. However, because the capacity of the equipment was limited, each network could cover no more than 50,000 subscribers. Alvarion could not upgrade its network equipment or expand capacity to meet the demands of OMT and its subscribers.

In 2006, OMT thoroughly evaluated alternative suppliers to replace Alvarion.  ZTE was selected as the new supplier for new GSM projects on Reunion and Mayotte. ZTE’s leading solutions and fast delivery allowed OMT to commercialize the network in early 2007. This initial cooperation enhanced mutual trust between the two companies. Over the following three years, ZTE helped OMT swap over its 2G networks and deploy 3G networks in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana.  

Throughout the cooperation, ZTE’s products performed very well. ZTE’s fast deployment and forward-thinking services were recognized by OMT. At the end of 2010, OMT and ZTE signed a four-year strategic cooperation framework agreement on mobile networks, intelligent networks, service platform, transmission, power systems, unified network management systems, and terminals.

Now, ZTE products account for 95 percent of OMT’s purchases of RAN, core network, VAS, and power system equipment. Without doubt, ZTE is OMT’s most valuable strategic partner.

Customized and Cost-effective Cabinet Reuse

The populations of France’s five overseas departments and regions are small, and it is difficult for OMT to grow a large subscriber base. Therefore, reducing opex and improving profitability of data services are top priorities when upgrading networks. 

When planning the new network deployment, OMT specified that they wanted to make full use of existing base station cabinets; they wanted enough room reserved to deploy future 3G services; and they wanted to allow for smooth evolution to LTE. OMT also wanted the network to be completed as soon as possible.

ZTE put together a special R&D team to work on the issue of cabinet reuse. ZTE took into account the structure of existing 2G cabinets and came up with a highly integrated modular design so that the 2G cabinets could accommodate 3G SDR technology.

In early 2007, OMT applied this customized solution to its new 2G projects in Reunion and Mayotte. Commercial trials showed that ZTE’s solution was perfect.

In 2008, ZTE helped OMT replace its 2G equipment and build 3G networks in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana. ZTE optimized its cabinet reuse solution by allowing 3G overlay based on SDR technology. In 2011, ZTE added deep-packet inspection and a policy and charging rules function, both of which can help OMT develop data services and enhance the profitability of its 2G and 3G mobile networks.

“3G services are essential to our broadband strategy in our overseas departments and regions. We are responding directly to the needs of our customers, who want to benefit from unlimited voice and data. They also want other innovative services at attractive prices. After the network deployment in Reunion, we partnered with ZTE again because of ZTE’s professionalism and great service,” said Jean-Michel Hegesippe, chairman and managing director of OMT.

Unified OCS Solution

The five French overseas departments and regions are located in different time zones, and this makes unifying management, service deployment, and billing across the five networks difficult.

ZTE’s unified OCS solution is tailored for OMT. The OCS online charging system allows OMT to flexibly define packages and bring together the charging functions of OMT’s fixed and mobile networks. This greatly enhances the billing capability of OMT and allows OMT to quickly realize unified operational support (pricing policy, billing, and charging), unified roaming, and unified user experience. Users can recharge their accounts at any time when roaming in the five overseas departments and regions.  

Today, OMT’s unified network operation center in Mauritius manages the networks in the five departments and regions. 

Win-Win Cooperation

After five years of upgrading their networks, OMT now has the greatest coverage and delivers the best services in the French overseas departments and regions. In 2011, a third-party consulting company tested the networks of all operators in the French departments and regions. The results showed that OMT’s networks had improved greatly and outperformed many other operators.

At the end of 2011, OMT had 620,000 subscribers and a turnover of 194.3 million euros. Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) were 58.2 million euros.