During an emergency meeting on March 18, 2024 in Yaoundé, Minette Libom Li Likeng, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, instructed communication operators on measures for continuity of service.
Cameroon and several other African countries have been facing an internet outage since March 12, 2024. The reasons given relate to a disconnection of submarine cables. A situation which has plunged the country into a difficult situation at a time when in Cameroon several activities are linked to the availability of the internet. According to Beaugas Orain Djoyum, CEO of the ICT Media Stratégies firm, specializing in strategic monitoring, e-reputation and web advertising, more than 2.5 billion CFA francs were lost following this outage.
According to Minpostel, Cameroon is moderately impacted by this outage, but for an emergency solution, it is a question of: The emergency increase of internet capacities on the SAIL cable of 70 Giga bytes/s on the day of the incident at 170 Giga bytes/s already achieved today, at 370 Giga bytes/s in a week and later at 500 Giga bytes/s; Data credit not consumed following this incident will be systematically returned to the consumer; The pooling of active and passive infrastructures must be strengthened; Operators will have to strengthen their local cache in order to save as much information as possible locally to mitigate the effects of future incidents of the same nature; The diversification of international access routes with satellite redundancy routes; Carrying out an independent audit of operators’ end-to-end networks, starting with fiber optic and then radio networks.
“The Regulator is responsible for ensuring the strict implementation of the above-mentioned recommendations and reporting on a weekly basis until the rehabilitation of submarine connections and the reestablishment of electronic communications services. These measures will allow Cameroon to adequately deal with this type of incident in the future. The State will always remain alongside the populations to ensure its protection in the provision of electronic communications services by operators, anything which justifies the establishment of effective strategies and policies, for the widespread and equitable adoption of said services. , and a harmonious and inclusive development of digital technology in our country. » , declares Minette Libom Li Likeng, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications.
