Interview with CEO of France Telecom

Q. Tell me about France Telecom's plans for the Middle East?

A. For us, Jordan is a key point. I come to Jordan quite often. We have a big operation here together with Jordan Telecom. We are also present in Egypt and in other countries. We want to have the best network here and then to develop the best services. We're on our way to achieving that.

Q. Are you bidding for any mobile licenses in the region through Orange?

A. Today, we are extremely careful. If we see good opportunities, we are ready to do it. But we're not going to do it in a crazy way. We do it step by step.

Q. How about North Africa? It should be a natural market for France Telecom.

A. We are considering North Africa. There again, you have to remember we have to come up with big investments. Eight months ago, when I took over, we were heavily in debt. I worked hard to reduce the debt.

Now the situation is much better. But we are moving step by step. We are not going to do it the crazy way.

Q. You seem to be developing a theory that a lot of people disagree with: the convergence of all the platforms.

A. That's not what I said. I said that we need to be careful to develop the same services on every network. We are lucky to have many countries to control two or three networks.

What we are doing is using these countries a lot, and we are developing the same package or network from the fixed to mobile or Internet. Networks will increasingly become commodities. But what will make the difference are the services.

Look at i-mode. DoCoMo developed it, and now they are selling it to various operators around the world. We believe that when you are a customer-minded company, you develop services and people can use them anywhere in the world.

Now, if you have a network, that is very good. If not, you will partner with someone who has the network. You no longer need to control the network in order to control the service. You just need to develop services around the customers and then need to figure out how to take them to various markets around the world.

So we will develop our services in France and the UK and, when it makes sense, we will take them elsewhere to other markets.

Q. Is the Middle East ready for this business model?

A. Oh, yes. Yes, if it makes sense. What kind of services are we talking about over here? We are talking about unified contact lists, unified e-mail, SMS from fixed to mobile and vice versa, videophony from fixed to mobile and vice versa. In broadband, you have almost no limit. In Jordan, 75 percent of households that have a telephone can have broadband access, which is a good thing.

Q. What about pricing strategy?

A. The prices here are not the same as elsewhere. Yes, but we are making big advances here. In Jordan, we reduced our prices heavily about two weeks ago. But the consumers here are not willing or able to pay the same kind of prices as in developed markets. Creativity. That's my answer: creativity.