2023-06-03 10:22:25
Affected by the sanctions of the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ART) of May 25, 2023, which are accompanied by cumulative penalties of 6 billion FCFA, the four mobile telephone operators operating in Cameroon were invited on Monday, May 29 last, at a crisis meeting at the Presidency of the Republic. Indeed, the market leaders, MTN Cameroon and Orange Cameroon, in this case, contest these sanctions and are not willing to pay the penalties imposed on them (1.4 billion and 2.2 billion FCFA, respectively) in conditions they consider cavalier.
From reliable sources, the two main mobile operators in Cameroon would even be ready to challenge the latest ART decisions in court, on the grounds that the process that led to these measures was biased. In addition to the fact that they were not directly notified of the sanctions – they received the information through the press – the operators also accuse ART of having passed sanctions in the meantime, in violation of the adversarial principle, and without carrying out further visits to the field to assess the level of implementation of the recommendations made to them. This system of sanctions provided for by the regulations in force provides for the withdrawal of the title or approval, the reduction of the duration of the title or pecuniary sanctions. A source at MTN contacted by EcoMatin goes even further, accusing the regulator of not having up-to-date technological means to carry out controls on their installations, the ART control tools being obsolete in relation to technological advances.
Read also: Network quality: Orange, Nexttel, MTN and Camtel fined 6 billion
The pill is all the more bitter for the sanctioned companies since, for them, the ART seems to have ignored the disorder orchestrated in the installation of the antennas of the other telecommunications services, in particular the radioelectric installations at the level of the radio station of the Mount Mbankolo in Yaoundé, with all that entails in terms of wave interference. “In the city of Yaoundé alone, 60% of the network is disrupted by interference. And the regulator is unable to change this situation”, lets us hear a source at Orange Cameroon who also points out that in its control report, the ART recognizes that the external causes of disturbance of the telephone network, namely the he instability of the optical fiber and the energy deficit, or even interference with antennas other than those of the telephone operators impact the network much more than the causes attributed to the telephone operators, but still heavily penalize these operators.
Airplane mode operation
At ART, we recognize internal dysfunctions in the procedure for notifying sanctions, but we remain reassuring: “They were notified this Monday, May 29 in the afternoon, admittedly with a delay, but they were notified “, Suggests a source at the Directorate General. “You can’t hit your child and stop him from crying. The current sanction follows a 4th control descent. We think we have sinned, it must be recognized by a certain tolerance. These penalties are also not heavy enough, because 2 billion for Orange is nothing compared to the profits they reap. We just hope things get better soon,” our source continues. “These operators will not be credible if they try to defend the quality of their networks as they stand. All we want is for them to improve”.
Read also: Cost of telecommunications: towards a dialogue of the deaf between the government and the telephone operators?
Indeed, we recall that faced with the surge in consumer complaints relating to the increasingly decadent quality of telecommunications services – paradoxically to their costs deemed too high -, in the fourth quarter of 2022, the teams of the brigade ART controls had taken up the case and carried out, throughout the national territory, controls on the equipment of mobile telephone companies, in particular MTN Cameroon, Orange Cameroon, Nexttel and even the public operator Cameroon Telecommunications (Camtel). The report at the end of these raids revealed significant shortcomings attributable to all the mobile telephone operators. In a press release dated November 1, ART’s Director General, Philémon Zo’o Zame, noted that these shortcomings concerned, in addition to the quality of service, the coverage and performance of the access networks, the tariff offers and the use of radio frequencies. The regulator had then individually given notice to these companies to remedy as soon as possible this situation detrimental to consumers of electronic communications products and services. Failing this, they exposed themselves to the penalties provided for by the regulations in force.
Read also: Mobile telephony: after the consumer boycott campaign, the government announces a mission to assess the telecom sector
What is more, at the end of the consultations held under the leadership of the Minpostel in the wake of the “airplane mode” operation launched by consumers to protest against the high cost of data, telephone calls and the poor quality of service, MTN and Orange , to take only these two operators who seem to be on a war footing with the regulator, had announced the implementation of a series of measures to help improve the service. This reflects at least a lack of coordination between the ART and its supervisory authority, which has repeatedly denounced its inertia in monitoring the application of the law.
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