Rail Corridors and the Backbone Gap: Aligning Incentives for Morocco’s Digital Economy

Morocco  · 

The Evolution of Telecom Operators Shaped by Transport Infrastructure

Morocco has entered a phase of sustained economic expansion supported by demographic growth, political stability and rising investment in infrastructure. In 2020, the EBRD identified Morocco as the second-largest market in the SEMED region (around 37 million inhabitants), with strong expected broadband growth (about 13% annually) (EBRD, 2020). Major events that see Morocco as a protagonist on the international scene, such as the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2030 FIFA World Cup, will accelerate this trajectory by concentrating public investment.

Furthermore, Morocco aims to position itself as a major digital economy, as outlined in the Digital Morocco 2030 strategy. With the goals of digitizing public services and stimulating the digital economy, the telecommunication sector plays the role of a key accelerator alongside cloud development and the growth of digital skills. The Kingdom’s vision for next-generation connectivity includes making 5,6 million households eligible for FTTH and achieving 70% 5G population coverage by 2030. Also, by 2026, the strategy aims to connect 6300 urban public administration sites with optical fiber, extending the National Broadband Plan to 1800 locations with poor or no connectivity and strengthening the use of the Universal Service Fund to ensure national 4G roaming.

This combination of economic momentum and digital ambition places significant pressure on national connectivity infrastructure, making historical limits emerge. Without high-capacity, low-latency and reliable transport links, the benefits of digitalization remain uneven and concentrated in already connected regions. Long distance routes are not distributed evenly across the territory and competition in backbone access is limited. This creates persistent gaps in digitalization, especially in the northeast, the south and the eastern interior, and reinforces historical asymmetries between the incumbent and its competitors.

The current market structure of the Moroccan telecommunications sector reflects these constraints. Three operators dominate the market, each with different infrastructure positions.

Maroc Telecom, also known as Itissalat Al Maghrib, remains the dominant force in Morocco’s telecommunications sector. In 2016, fourteen years after formal liberalization, it still accounted for more than 62 % of industry turnover (World Bank, 2016). The operator has benefited from strong financial and operational performance. In 2015, its EBITDA reached 52 % on domestic activities, an amount equivalent to the combined turnover of the other competitors. Maroc Telecom is 51% owned by the French group Vivendi and maintains international interests in Africa and Latin America, which strengthen its financial stability and allow consistent reinvestment in national infrastructure (Gelvanovska et al., 2014). Its network covers nearly all major regions in Morocco with an estimated 25000 kilometers of fiber, far exceeding the capacity of competitors. It also controls essential facilities such as international gateways and long-distance backbone routes, which reinforces its central role in national connectivity. In several regions, Maroc Telecom’s footprint remains the main determinant of whether high-quality broadband can reach local populations.

Orange, previously Méditel, entered the market as the second major operator. Its shareholder structure included Orange France, the Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion and FinanceCom. After obtaining licenses, the operator concentrated heavily on mobile services in a context with high mobile penetration (World Bank, 2016). This strategy brought rapid customer growth, but it also meant that investment in fixed infrastructure, in particular fiber, was limited. As retail prices fell and revenues declined, Orange faced limits in scaling its backbone. To close gaps, the operator relied on alternative infrastructure owners, including railway, energy and road infrastructure owners (Gelvanovska et al., 2014).

Inwi, formerly Wana, followed a similar path but with an even more constrained fixed footprint. In 2016, Inwi was mainly owned by the group SNI/ONA, a Moroccan conglomerate closely linked to the Moroccan royal family, and by the Kuwaiti group Zain (World Bank, 2016). It entered the market without fixed deployment obligations and therefore focused first on mobile operations. As a result, its backbone remains smaller than Maroc Telecom’s and more fragmented than Orange’s (Gelvanovska et al., 2014).

The evolution of the three operators is closely linked to the availability and conditions of access to long-distance transport infrastructure. In particular, Maroc Telecom’s capacity to invest in fiber on a national scale has translated into a structural advantage that competitors have not been able to close.

This market structure becomes even more critical in the context of the recent launch of 5G in Morocco in November 2025. As 5G architecture implies higher traffic volumes, stricter latency targets, the need for edge processing to support network slicing and new classes of applications, it forces operators to extend fiber often all the way to the cell site.

Moreover, the GSMA report on Mobile Economy in the MENA region shows that deployment of 5G networks in the Gulf Cooperation Council states has advanced quickly thanks to coordinated spectrum policies and a managed transition away from 2G and 3G (GSMA, 2024). With only 8 % of networks still on legacy technologies in 2023 and a complete phase out projected by 2030, the GCC states are offering predictable conditions for operators to invest in more fiber and accelerate 5G. More generally, the rest of MENA, including Morocco, faces delayed commercial launches, lack of infrastructure sharing agreements and limited spectrum assignments that make investment riskier. Operators face rising expenses that they cannot fully absorb, especially as revenues stagnate in a saturated mobile market (GSMA, 2024).

In fact, as the EBRD explains, the capacity of Moroccan operators to respond to these demands has been limited by major constraints (EBRD, 2020). A first major constraint has been the incumbent’s long-standing reluctance to open its infrastructure. For many years, this pushed other operators toward their own deployments, even when duplicating assets made little economic sense. In the absence of a clear and enforceable framework to guide infrastructure sharing during that period, cooperation remained limited to isolated cases. As a result, sharing between operators never developed into a systematic practice. This contributed to a cost structure that investors from the EBRD described as “economically crazy” (EBRD, 2020).

A second major constraint has been the saturation of the mobile market, which has historically been the core force driving the development of the sector. Since 2006, the industry has been driven by the expansion of mobile connectivity, but this segment reached saturation within a decade. Mobile penetration rose to 128 % in 2015 and growth then stalled. Combined with declining retail prices, this saturation reduced operators’ revenues (World Bank, 2016). The economic model of the three main operators remained highly dependent on mobile telephony, representing nearly 70 % of Maroc Telecom’s turnover and almost the entire revenue base of Orange/Méditel and Inwi/Wana combined. As revenues weakened, their capacity to invest in infrastructure also diminished.

The need for diversified long distance infrastructure

In this context, infrastructure sharing shifts from a simple cost saving option to a prerequisite for broad coverage. ITU-T D.264 indicates potential savings of around 30 % with passive sharing and up to 50 % to 60 % with active sharing, showing that sharing is one of the few viable ways to expand national coverage (GSMA, 2024). The absence of a regulated wholesale market, however, prevents these models from becoming systematic. Without predictable access conditions for backbone and backhaul, operators remain hesitant, and large differences in service availability between regions persist. To address this structural gap, competitors need access alternative long-distance infrastructure that can operate as neutral backbones. Alternative infrastructure providers, such as railway, energy and highway operators, become relevant because their networks already cover strategic corridors where telecom operators must expand capacity. Among these, railway operators are particularly well placed to act as long-distance backhaul providers and to complement traditional telecom infrastructure.

The questions guiding this essay is: How have digital infrastructures around rail evolved in Morocco’s transport sector and what are the trends? How can policy and infrastructure sharing turn railways into deliberate enablers of the digital economy? The essay will highlight the enabling role of digital infrastructure and telecoms, analyze national forces that support or retard this evolution, and conclude with how challenges could be addressed.

Highlights: the enabling role of railway operators as digital infrastructure providers

Rail transport can act like a major enabler of telecommunication services for Moroccan citizens and businesses, as with new rail infrastructure also comes the chance to deploy fiber and related telecom assets.

When it comes to already existing railway infrastructure, Morocco is the sole African country with a high-speed train serving passenger transportation, known as Al Boraq. This high-speed rail service, the first of its kind on the continent, was inaugurated in 2018, following a decade of planning and construction by ONCF, the national railway company of Morocco.

The current Al-Boraq high speed rail network consists of two main sections. The first is a route from Tangier to Kénitra, while the second is an upgraded route from Kénitra to Casablanca. Together, these lines structure the main north south axis of the country and connect major urban centers, ports and logistics hubs.

As part of Morocco’s transport strategy for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, major projects for expanding and improving the national transportation infrastructure are being introduced. The initiative includes extensive effort to connect stadiums and stations in Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and many other smaller cities. In October 2025, Moroccan news reported the beginning of the construction of new high-speed lines and the upgrade of existing stations along the 430-kilometer corridor between Kénitra and Marrakech, effectively completing a vision that would allow to connect Tangier and Agadir in approximately 4 hours.

Concerning signaling and telecommunications, in May 2025 the Compagnie des Signaux, together with the Italians SITE and GCF, announced a contract with ONCF to supply and install signaling systems and the related telecommunications network, including a modern fiber backbone, power systems and cybersecurity components. Until recently, railway fiber was used almost exclusively to support IT and OT systems, which require high bandwidth, low latency and reliable transmission for signaling, monitoring and real time operational control. Because this infrastructure is already built to meet demanding technical standards, it can evolve from a purely internal asset into a critical component of the national backbone for telecom operators.

For telecom operators, there are multiple benefits. First, railway infrastructure spans long distances and connects major population centers, which makes it a natural route for extending high speed connectivity along the same axes where operators need to expand 5G and fiber presence to serve households, businesses and public administrations. Second, the role of Moroccan railway fiber becomes even more relevant in a market where Maroc Telecom, as the incumbent, controls extensive proprietary fiber assets. Competitors therefore can leverage alternative infrastructure providers to secure high-capacity links, and railway operators can serve as a credible and neutral option for backhaul and backbone connectivity.

For railway operators, the benefits are equally clear. While maintaining full support for their operational needs, this model creates opportunities to open their fiber networks to third party operators, generating new revenue streams and strengthening their role within national connectivity strategies. Moreover, by opening up their fiber networks to third party operators, railway companies can foster competition in the telecom market.

Existing dark fiber sharing arrangements

The current structure of dark fiber sharing already shows how railway infrastructure can be used to strengthen the backbone of competitors. As retail prices fell and revenues declined, Orange, then Méditel, turned to alternative infrastructure owners to expand its backbone. Morocco’s Telecom Law allows licensed operators to lease excess fiber from entities such as ONCF, ONEE (Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable, the Moroccan public establishment responsible for the production, transmission, and distribution of electricity and drinking water) or ADM (Autoroutes du Maroc, the state-owned company responsible for building, operating, and maintaining Morocco’s highways), although these providers may offer only passive infrastructure and cannot supply managed transport services, which shifts most operational responsibility to the leasing operator (Gelvanovska et al., 2014).

In 2005, ONCF and Orange, then Méditel, signed a 30 years long strategic agreement under which Orange rents fiber on key between Fes and Oujda and co-locates equipment in ONCF premises (Gelvanovska et al., 2014). Both parties have also jointly constructed fiber optic networks along railway tracks linking Casablanca, Rabat, Fez, Tangier and Marrakech. This allowed ONCF to enhance its communications network and Orange to extend national reach. As a result, Orange operates a hybrid backbone that mixes owned infrastructure with segments accessed through utility corridors. Inwi/Wana followed a similar pattern, expanding its backbone by integrating fiber originally deployed for non-telecom purposes. Yet its fixed footprint remains smaller than Maroc Telecom’s and more fragmented than Orange’s.

Given this structural deficit in long-distance fiber, railway corridors represent an opportunity as they follow major population and economic routes where operators must expand 5G and fiber coverage. Unlike energy or water infrastructure, railway infrastructure covers large spans of a country and runs directly through major stations, logistics hubs and dense neighborhoods.

In summary, rail transport is well placed to act as a backbone enabler for Morocco’s digital economy. Existing and future rail corridors increase the number of routes along which fiber can be deployed. With railway fiber, operators gain access to high quality, geographically relevant corridors that reduce dependence on the incumbent’s network and lower the cost of 5G and FTTH expansion. Railway operators gain new revenue sources and a more central role in national connectivity. However, fully realizing this potential at the national scale depends on how the regulatory framework and the broader national environment evolve.

Analysis: national forces that support or retard the evolution of the digital economy

According to ITU best practices, sustainable digital markets depend on ‘any-to-any connectivity’, predictable wholesale access and neutral operators able to host multiple tenants under economies of scale (ITU, 2020). Morocco illustrates what occurs when these foundations are incomplete, as the EBRD described a “wholesale market failure” in which access products were formally available yet functionally unusable due to delays, uncertainty or insufficient quality (EBRD, 2020). This situation has been reinforced by Maroc Telecom’s dominant position, as its wholesale services have existed for years in principle but have not enabled competitors to operate on a predictable and competitively sustainable basis.

These shortcomings create a clear incentive imbalance. The incumbent benefits from preserving the value of its proprietary backbone and faces limited pressure to shift toward shared routes. Competitors rely on third-party infrastructure only when access conditions are predictable and economically sustainable, which is not consistently the case. Infrastructure owners such as ONCF engage meaningfully only when regulatory rules protect them from operational burdens that fall outside their transport mission. In the absence of such alignment, investment concentrates in profitable corridors, overlaps and gaps persist, and operators are left to assemble long-distance solutions through fragmented agreements rather than through a coherent wholesale regime.

It is within this context that the new Kénitra–Marrakech LGV corridor becomes relevant. Its fiber and operational sites could serve as an additional high-capacity backbone route, but the extent of its impact depends entirely on the institutional framework applied to it. Without clear rules for wholesale access and pricing, the corridor risks remaining a specialized asset accessed through isolated bilateral arrangements, limiting its ability to influence the broader structure of Morocco’s national backbone.

In March 2025, the Moroccan telecommunication authority ANRT issued Decision DG/05/25 on FTTH infrastructure sharing introduced a more structured approach to wholesale access by distinguishing between OI (Operators of Infrastructure) and OC (Commercial Operators) and by requiring the publication of technical and tariff offers (Agence Nationale de Réglementation des Télécommunications, 2025). This separation clarifies responsibilities, increases transparency and reduces the degree of discretion that previously characterized access negotiations. OIs now have defined obligations for providing access, while OCs can operate without the need to build end-to-end networks, which strengthens competition and shifts operators’ focus from network replication to service differentiation.

The decision also formalizes active and passive sharing. In the active model, OCs use the OI’s active equipment to serve end users. In the passive model, OCs obtain access at a mutualization point and manage their own active assets. The planned progression toward broader passive sharing strengthens operational independence and reduces the likelihood of duplicated deployments. After more than a decade of recommendations from the World Bank (World Bank, 2016), these developments strengthen the position of companies that specialize in managing infrastructure (such as the so-called “towercos and fibercos”). In this environment, OIs gain a clearer mandate to manage infrastructure and a stronger incentive to secure reliable backhaul, which increases the relevance of alternative long-distance capacity providers such as ONCF.

Although focused on FTTH access networks, ANRT’s decision shapes long-distance connectivity by strengthening the position of OIs and increasing the likelihood that they will seek backhaul and transport capacity from alternative infrastructure providers. As OIs expand their wholesale role, they gain stronger incentives to develop structured partnerships with actors such as ONCF, especially where FTTH deployments require dependable routes linking distribution networks to the backbone. In this sense, the decision reinforces the structural link between access and transport, since the sustainability of the OI-OC model depends on the availability of high-quality backhaul.

However, the decision does not fully address the conditions that limit the commercial viability of deployment in remote areas. Since OIs may still be reluctant to invest in regions with high deployment and maintenance costs, a stronger framework for shared use is needed to bring the benefits of the model risk outside of dense urban corridors. Policymakers can ease this constraint by creating a regulatory environment that makes infrastructure sharing more attractive for alternative operators and infrastructure owners, for instance by reducing administrative and technical barriers and ensuring open, non-discriminatory use of civil, railway and energy corridors (World Bank, 2016). Clearer rules on corridor access and fairer treatment of revenues from sharing would help align the incentives of railway operators and telecom providers in the long-distance transport segment.

Conclusions

The evidence presented in this essay shows that Morocco’s digital ambitions can find a solid ally in long-distance transport infrastructure. While progress in FTTH and mobile broadband has been steady, the backbone that supports these services remains shaped by historical asymmetries, a dominant incumbent, and access conditions that have never fully encouraged competition or diversification. As a result, the geography of digital development still mirrors the geography of legacy transport routes, and neither market forces nor isolated bilateral agreements have been able to correct these structural patterns.

Rail corridors offer one of the few credible opportunities to alter this trajectory. They follow the country’s main economic axes, already host infrastructure built to demanding operational standards, and can introduce new capacity exactly where operators need to strengthen backhaul for FTTH and 5G expansion. Yet their potential remains constrained by institutional limits. Without predictable wholesale rules, without clarity on the commercial and operational boundaries of infrastructure owners such as ONCF, and without incentives that reduce the risks associated with opening non-telecom assets to third parties, these corridors remain underutilized and disconnected from national digital planning.

Addressing these constraints requires aligning the incentives of all actors involved in the long-distance segment. Policymakers have a central role in ensuring that access to long-distance corridors becomes predictable in terms of pricing, service levels and provisioning, so operators other than the incumbent can make long-term backbone decisions with reduced uncertainty. They also need to formalize the role of alternative infrastructure providers by defining their permitted revenue models and operational boundaries, allowing entities such as ONCF, ONEE and ADM to act as stable partners without drifting into unintended telecom responsibilities.

If these elements are combined, the new Kénitra–Marrakech LGV corridor could successfully evolve from an isolated transport asset into a planned component of Morocco’s backbone, supporting the broader objectives of Digital Morocco 2030. In doing so, it can help shift national connectivity from a system defined by structural constraints to one capable of supporting more even, resilient and competitive digital development.

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