By DOH JAMES SONKEY IN YAOUNDE
The Executive President of the Assembly of Telecommunications Regulators in the Central African Region referred to as ARTAC, Lin Mombo who doubles as Board Chair of Gabonese Electronic Communications and Posts Regulation Authority, ARCEP paid a one-day working visit to the Cameroon Telecommunications Regulatory Board better known by its French acronym as ART.
Mr Lin Mombo who led a delegation of experts to Yaoundé held a working session last May 26, 2017 with ART’s officials whose Director General, Jean Louis Beh Mengue was represented at the occasion by Mr Sosthene Bounoung Essono, a Director.
ARTAC President, Lin Mombo and his delegation
Mr Sosthene Bounoung Essono of ART explained to reporters that the working session between ART and ARCEP focused on how traffic and roaming can be bypassed in Central Africa in order to reduce telecommunications prices. He further said they equally brainstormed on the coordination of frequencies at the borders so as to avoid possible interference in a neighbouring country thereby causing diplomatic conflicts.
The Board Chair of Gabonese Electronic Communications and Posts Regulation Authority, ARCEP, Lin Mombo said his working visit opens up an opportunity for Cameroon and Gabon to review cooperation in the domain of telecommunications regulation. “We equally discussed on how to bypass international traffic where users are forced to receive calls from local numbers when indeed it is an international call. In the Central African region we have identified that international traffic is a serious threat because it is at the origin of huge revenue loss for telecommunications companies and the states in terms of taxes. We also noticed that with the notion of roaming as one moves out of his or her country to another, calls received or made are excessively expensive. We think that if roaming barriers are lifted, calls within Gabon and Cameroon or to and from any other Central African country will embrace local tariffs and consequently become cheap.”
Asked why it is taking long to become a reality in the sub region, Mr Lin Mombo explained that “the telecommunications sector cannot be dissociated from others in the Central African region such as the free movement of persons and goods, roads etc as they must be tackled together.”