Djezzy, the Algerian telecommunications operating unit of VimpelCom, said Wednesday it has received approval to roll out 3G network connectivity to all regions of the North African country.

Currently, Djezzy's 3G network reaches about 55% of the country's population. However, the latest development means the network can be extended to all regions by the end of 2016, effectively overriding a previous 2017 restriction as stipulated in its original license agreement.

"At the end of December 2015, Djezzy's 3G network covered 55% of the country's population. In November 2015, Djezzy received approval to roll out 3G to all regions in Algeria by the end of 2016, compared to the previous restriction of 2017 in the initial 3G license," VimpelCom said on Wednesday.

Algeria is an important emerging market for VimpelCom - although "negative performance" in the country during the fourth quarter of 2015 had seen revenues from VimpelCom's emerging markets decline by 2%.

In the full year to end December 2015, revenue from Djezzy declined by 7% and this has been attributed to the "churn of high value customers and ARPU erosion". The company has stated that this was "partially offset by strong growth in mobile data revenue which continued to grow."

The revenue decline in Algeria had seen EBITDA earnings weaken by 4% on a year-on-year basis. Subscriber numbers on the company's network in Algeria also declined by 4% to 17 million by the end of the December quarter.

The company attributes this to price competition and what it describes as "a gap versus competitors" in 3G roll-out.

"Djezzy continued to implement its transformation program in Q4 2015 which is expected to take another nine months to complete. However the market remained challenging with ongoing aggressive price competition and device promotions," VimpelCom added.