As the controversy over telecom quality of service continues, MTN Cameroon said this week that fibre destruction has increased by more than 40% this year compared to the previous year.Following previous disruptions to phone and data services, the company highlighted worries over the state-owned Camtel’s monopoly on the administration of the national optic fibre backbone.
Mobile network carriers in the country have recently traded blame for poor service quality, attributing it to Camtel’s optic fibre connectivity.
MTN said in a statement that it was currently suffering a double fibre cut on two segments in the country’s north, resulting in lost calls and slower-than-usual internet connections for its subscribers.The telco said: “The deterioration has been more alarming since August, with an average of more than two fibre cuts per day.”
Also, MTN Cameroon said the increase in outages has led to a 30% increase in incident resolution time, sometimes lasting several days.It added: “MTN Cameroon also wishes to reiterate the pivotal role that fibre connectivity stability plays in providing quality service to its customers.”However, MTN said that under current conditions, it is beyond its control, and it is difficult to ensure the optimum quality of service.
For its part, Orange Cameroon critiqued Camtel for shortcomings and said it has been experiencing network outages since September 24th due to a terrestrial optic cable cut.“In effect, multiple disruptions on the optic fibre backbone between Douala and Yaounde are currently hampering the functioning of voice and data equipment in the two cities and other parts of the country,” the company said.
ENEO has also been accused of not delivering electricity. Although investments have been made, challenges remain, including insufficient power, untimely outages of the optical fibre supplied by Camtel, with restoration times of 13 to 14 hours. MTN says it is facing difficulties in obtaining access permits to some sites for interventions. MTN’s network is subject to harmful interference, particularly in the 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz bands, particularly in the cities of Yaoundé and Douala, and in border areas.
On the Orange Cameroon side, the General Manager wanted to be clear: “there are certain problems that do not depend on us” . Among these problems, he listed, “there is the issue of optical fiber. Whatever investments we make in our equipment, if we cannot stabilize optical fiber transmission, customer feelings will not be able to improve. We also have the issue of energy that impacts us. When electricity is cut off for a long time, we have situations where our sites can no longer keep up” , said Patrick Benon. For the moment, Eneo has not yet commented on these accusations. “The company is going through an undeniable reality, that of the increase in acts of vandalism in its network and incidents related to the execution of public interest works” defends Camtel in a press release published on September 18, 2024 by Judith Yah Sunday, Epse Achidi, General Manager of Camtel.
Camtel has claimed that it cannot be held fully liable and that responsibility should be proportionate to the company’s share of liability in the recent event.
In response to the deterioration in the quality of electronic communications services observed in recent months in Cameroon , a team from the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency led by its Director General, Philémon Zo’o Zame, carried out a field visit from September 23 to 25, 2024 in Douala to the country’s main mobile telephone operators
“The issue of quality of service is on the ART agenda. We hold many meetings with operators and with its own staff to examine the quality of service so that it improves for the end consumer. The mission we are carrying out is an evaluation mission, to see the efforts that operators have made on the ground so that this quality of service improves” declared Jules César Essoh Nkambo, Director of Recovery at ART.
“We have noted that investments have been made. Unfortunately, of all the billions that have been invested, the end consumer continues not to feel the effects of these investments. As part of this mission, the ART discussed all aspects, human resources, techniques, internal organization, financing to see what efforts the operators can still make to continue to improve the quality of service every day. At the end of this mission, we encouraged the stakeholders to continue the investments. The operators discussed the problem of interference, problems at the transport level, in particular optical fiber, and the question of energy. Discussions are continuing, proposals have been made. In the coming days, the ART will mobilize all the stakeholders, and certainly make concrete proposals,” Jules César Essoh Nkambo told the press.
