The main ESPTT mission is to train technical and administrative staff for the telecommunication sector and under the direction of Prof. Ahmed Mahjoub, they have started to develop research in the field of telecommunications. There are 37 researchers , 2 University professors and 18 students preparing a PhD thesis ( cf. Annex II). The annual budget allocated to research is difficult to estimate since teaching and research activities are interwoven
The telephone switch laboratories are well equipped with full working models of all main types of switches used in the Tunisian public telephone network (Alcatel, Siemens, Ericsson, Northern Telecom and Daewoo). One laboratory is devoted to small private telephone switches.
ESPTT has all the facilities to offer excellent training to technicians and field engineers in the area of modern telephone switching. There are several teaching laboratories and four research laboratories:
Unfortunately at the time of the visit the laboratories were closed and there was no opportunity to meet the researchers so that it was difficult to evaluate the research work currently being performed at ESPTT. However, the number of publications per researcher per year is similar to other research units in Tunisia and ESPTT seems to work in good connection with other Tunisian institutions like ENIT or FST.