Societe des Telecommunications Internationales du Tchad (SotelTchad) is a

Chad Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...

ian telecommunications

parastatal A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a business entity created or owned by a national or local government, either through an executive order or legislation. SOEs aim to generate profit for the government, prevent private sector monopolies, provide goo ...

providing landline domestic and international

telephone A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...

service, as well as Internet service. SotelTchad was created in 2000, when domestic phone services were detached from the

postal service The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sy ...

. The government initially stated its intention to privatize the parastatal through international bidding, but this was put on hold."Chad Country Commercial Guide - FY 2005"
by Vincent Spera , U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service and U.S. Department of State (hosted by

Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; ; )''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Industry (). is a department of the G ...

)] Company advertisements in late 2000 stated that there were 10,260 telephones and 1,020 Internet subscribers in the country. In 2001, SotelTchad agreed to a partnership with ITXC to provide international phone service via

Internet telephony Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

However, by 2005

cellphone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This radio ...

users on private networks vastly outnumbered the users of landlines. Privatized in 2010 and sold to the Libyan company Lap Green, the Chadian state subsequently regained control of the company.

Notes and references

Telecommunications companies of Chad Government of Chad {{telecom-company-stub