By DOH JAMES SONKEY
Users of telecommunications services in Cameroon may within six months be relieved from hitherto decried poor services following a six-month ultimatum given all operators by the government to improve their deteriorating service quality.
Speaking last October 27, 2017 in Yaounde, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng at a press conference attended by Communication Minister and Government Spokesman, Issa Tchiroma Bakary to release the result of an audit of the quality of service of the network of electronic communication operators in Cameroon underlined that “results of the audit confirms continuous degradation of service quality offered users by all operators; MTN Cameroon, Orange Cameroon, NEXTEL and CAMTEL due to their non respect of the terms of their agreement and the weak technical role played by the regulator, the Telecommunications Regulatory Board, ART.”
She equally blamed the operators for feeding the public with at least 10% of database information that is not viable.
Conducted by a Swedish firm, Cybercom Global Organization that has more than 1,300 employees and runs projects worldwide through 19 offices in 7 countries, the audit adds that operators carryout insufficient investment compared to the increase in the number of their subscribers, that there are technical lapses in regulating their equipments with the non respect of international standards and the setting of certain network equipments, that they spread non optimized networks.
The audit also explains that such a situation is responsible for the poor network availability, abrupt ending of calls and degradation of receiving quality, large vulnerability to security threats due to insufficient updates, non valid of security certificates, weak internet speed etc.
According to the audit, 3G coverage standard in Yaounde is 1.6, Douala 2.1 network standard and the other towns 2.8 meanwhile the international acceptable standard is 3.8.
Cameroon is therefore below the average performance in some African countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt etc that stands at 3.5.
This first ever audit since the telecom sector in the country was liberalized equally carries recommendations and corrective measures so that the operators can sit up.
The Minister concluded that government will take necessary measures to compel telecom operators to respect the terms of their contracts and that the capacity of ART and its equipments will be reinforced.