Orange Airtime

Orange Dominicana is the largest wireless operator in the Dominican Republic. It is also the fastest 3G network and the best GSM network in the region. The firm was founded in the year 2000 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the France Telecom Group. Their subscriber base is over 3 million.

The company was later bought out by the Luxembourg based investment firm Altice Group. France Telecom was all too willing to let Orange Dominica go as it consider the subsidiary to be one of its noncore operators. Orange Dominica offers a range of standard mobile telephony features including data, voice and international calls services. It is the first Dominican mobile network operator to introduce the GSM technology into the country.

Profile and History

The firm employs around 1900 employees. It has a subscription base of about 3.5 million subscribers who delivered a staggering $581 million in profits in 2012. The company has a market capitalization of over £41 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of around 30.

Altice bought 100% stake at an estimated $1.4 billion from France Telecom Group in 2014. The agreement included the continued use of the Orange Logo in designated frameworks. The sale transaction, which is subject to the approval of the Dominican regulator Indotel, had to be submitted to the Board of Directors of Orange for approval.

One of the biggest milestones for Orange Dominica was when they launched the, per second billing in 2002 and also introduced their Fidepuntos loyalty program. Two years after that they launched their mobile money platform the Pasa Tus Fondos.

Orange Product Development

In 2006 and 2007 Orange Dominica launched the Llámame y Recarga mi cuenta and the Recargas desde el exterior services which enables their customers to request another person to call them or share funds and recharge their account respectively.

Over the past eight years, Orange Dominica has launched a raft of major ideas, including rolling out the smartphone revolution in Dominican Republic and opening the first online phone store in the country.

Some of the biggest innovations and growth happened under Federic Debord, who later moved to Wana, the Moroccan based mobile network firm. The Orange Dominican team started a research and development centre in 2012 that explored the issues around mobile telephony including cutting edge apps and mobile solutions.

They are also the first Dominican mobile network operator to roll out the 3G+ network and the High Definition Voice Network. In 2014 they rolled out the 4G network across the country. Still in 2014 Altice Group announced the veteran telecommunications man Ernest Rallo wil be the new chairman of Orange Dominica. Rallo has over 30 years’ experience in the telecommunications industry.