Tunisia’s Tunisie Telecom has signed on global technology firm Alcatel-Lucent to upgrade its network, following a string of key broadband developments in North Africa this year.

The two companies have announced in a statement that a three-year agreement plans to transform the carrier’s voice and data network, “paving the way for ultra-broadband access services for residential and enterprise customers throughout Tunisia.”

Tunisie Telecom is the country’s fixed-line incumbent but it also offers mobile services.

In the statement, Alcatel Lucent says its ‘Services Access Manager’ (ISAM) portfolio is set to upgrade “tens of thousands of existing voice lines” of Tunisie Telecom to provide high-speed broadband using ADSL, VDSL and GPON technology.

The agreement is said to follow a trial of VDSL2 Vectoring technology in December 2012, according to Alcatel Lucent.

VDSL2 vectoring technology will help enable a migration towards 100 Mbps ultra-broadband on the Tunisian telecom firm’s network, which is said to consist largely of copper lines.

“Tunisie Telecom is a longstanding customer and we have worked very closely together to shape and evolve the network to the next level. This three-year agreement underscores the confidence Tunisie has in our VDSL2 and GPON technology and ability to help provide customers with the fastest broadband speeds possible now and in the future,” said Faiçal Haffoudhi, country senior officer of Alcatel-Lucent Tunisia said.

The Tunisie network upgrade; though, is just the latest of a string of key broadband developments in the North Africa this year.

Earlier this month, Alcatel-Lucent inked a deal in Libya to build a 1,000 km undersea cable system linking the country’s capital Tripoli to Benghazi.

In January, mobile broadband specialists Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) officially opened a new office with advanced facilities in Tripoli, Libya.