Projects & Outlook

I - Our Project : the Ethnic market

In France, 5 to 6 million people :
- Maghreb : 2 million,
- Sub-Saharan Africa : about 500 000,
- Asian Communities,
- Eastern Europeans

The main characteristics of this market are:

1. A growing market: we espect a significant growth of these population in France and in Europe by 2015.

2. Large consumers of telecommunications to reach their country of origin.

3. Migrants are the first players in the co-development in their countries of origin. For example, their assistance to countries in the South is of several hundred billion euros per year.

4. In France only in 2006, more than 10 billion euros have been transferred to the South.


Our Target

=> populations residing in multi-cultural districts:

- Excluded from digital services (ex. access to the internet and fixed telephony, purchases on internet, etc.),
- Characterized by a high proportion of young people,
- Lack of local services,
- Few economic activities in those districts,
- Growing purchasing power,
- Often little or unbanked.

=> Populations in demand for new services:

- Access to ICT,
- Prepay purchases of goods or services on the internet other than by credit card,
- Micro-money transfers at lower cost,
- Prepay services here, issued in their countries of origin (food, energy, education, transport, health).


II - The Concept

A shared platform of digital services that can offer a range of products and dematerialised services on a prepaid mode in digitally isolated areas. The prepayment of services will be made in the Digital Counters.


The Digital Counter

It is a facility with telephone booths and a cyber space, offering the following services :

- Telephony
- Internet
- Traditional prepaid products(wireline cards, refills for mobiles, games, logos, music, etc.)
- Mobile phone susbscriptions
- Accessories and mobile phones
- Repairing and unblocking mobile phones

Development and professionalization of an international network of Digital Counters interconnected via the internet to the platform and capable to reach the final consumer:

- In the heart of multi-cultural neighborhoods of nothern countries,
- Within the main regions of emigration of the South.

Function of the Digital Counters:

- To collect payment for the purchase of services and products available on the TELEMEDIA platform,
- To spread and to train in the use of products and value-added services.

Concerned countries:
- Mali
- Senegal
- Cameroon
- Mauritania
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Algeria
- Morocco
- Comoros
- Madagascar
- Congo
- DRC: Democratic Republic of Congo
- ...

A multi-sectoral opening to the players of co-development in the following areas:
- Health
- Education
- Profesionnal training
- Micro finance & micro crédit
- E-agriculture
- E-commerce
- ...

The Digital Counter has a web interface giving access to all services provided by the platform. All services are issued only if prepaid =>
1 - The Digital Counter credits its account at TELEMEDIA,
2 - from this credit, it sells services to its customers.

The final consumer may have access to all prepaid services through visits to the Digital Counter, or from an Internet access or via his mobile phone.

All transactions carried out by the customer are stored on a chip card functioning as a loyalty card, means of payment and authetification to access to services.


Deployment of TELEMEDIA's network

Deployment of Digital Counters in Africa :

- Interconnections of the various immigrant communities with their region of origin, via a broadband internet connection (satellite, fiber, cable, etc.).
- Installation of Digital Counters managed by migrants and their associations,
- Training of local populations,
- Sharing of competence,
- Development of partnerships with local operators: peering, maintenance and deployment of equipment.