 In December 2001, 51% of the company was purchased by the Sino-Libyan consortium DATAPORT, made up of the Libyan LAAICO company and the Chinese ZTE.The ZTE majority consortium reportedly paid 11.8 billion FCFA, beating out FranceTelecom and SONATEL The government of Niger continued to hold 34.11% of the company, with private investors taking 11%, the 1300 employees of SONITEL holding 3%, and France Câbles & Radio – who had been a stakeholder in STIN, 0.89%.In 2004, SONITEL's mobile phone arm SAHEL-TEL was opened up to face foreign competition, but SONITEL continued to hold a monopoly on Internet communication, .ne name registry, and international fixed line voice communication.