Algeria: 6 million subscribers to broadband Internet in 2013

Access to broadband internet (ADSL) is expected to reach six million subscribers Algeria by 2013 against 830,000 in today, said Tuesday the director general of the public operator Telecom Algeria, M'hamed Dabouz .

   "Algeria Telecom expects to achieve by 2013, some six million broadband access," said Dabouz at a meeting organized by the government daily Al-Mujahid.
   "In late 2010, Algeria Telecom had approximately 830,000 broadband subscribers on DSL for some five million Internet users," he said.
   The number of subscribers accessing the Internet through optical fiber (FTTH deployed recently) currently does not exceed 300, but the operator intends to expand rapidly in urban areas with high density, the official said.
   Algeria, whose population exceeds 35 million, end 2010 had over three million fixed telephone subscribers, the source said.
   Algeria Telecom, which employs over 26,000 people, plans to invest 10 billion dinars (100 million euros) between 2009 and 2013 to expand its fiber optic network to double the number of fixed telephone subscribers, six million in 2013.
   The public operator has also launched in June 2010 the laying a submarine cable in the development of its international telecommunications linking Oran (western Algeria) to Valencia (Spain).
   Between 2000 and 2005, two cables have been laid connecting the city of Annaba (East of Algeria) to Malta and Algiers to Marseille (southern France).