In Cameroon, telephone operators have been sanctioned by the State, which considers their quality of service to be too low in relation to the tariffs applied.
The revolt of the States in the face of shortcomings by telephone operators is it started? In several countries, these famous operators are scolded by users, who denounce a very low quality-price ratio. In Burkina Faso, last month, consumer associations had strike the phone for an hour to denounce too high prices and too mediocre services.
On the side of Togo or Senegal, the operators have been sanctioned by the respective regulatory authorities of the two countries. But on the side of the companies in question, we deplore “complex and disproportionate objectives” and “a lack of technical standardization and collaboration or consultation of the industry”. In other words, the States do not help operators enough to deploy their network.
A long-standing injury
This is, of course, not the opinion of the governments. As in Cameroon, where operators were sanctioned last week. Cameroonian users had strongly protested against the tariffs applied by the operators and the poor quality of the services offered by the latter.
Result: 6 billion CFA francs were imposed on the four operators approved by the Cameroonian authorities: MTN Cameroon, Orange Cameroon, Viettel and Camtel. The pressure of the citizen boycott, as had been the case in Burkina Faso, worked. The initiators of this movement demanded more respect from the telecom companies.
Alphonse Abena, president of a consumer association, asks the State to go even further: "We are calling for lower communication costs and lower internet connection rates so that there is compensation for the long-standing prejudice — months and years — suffered by Cameroonian consumers,” he said.
Admittedly, the associations have suspended their citizen boycott. But they remain attentive to the evolution of the situation. Operators will have to checkout. But they will also have to review their pricing policy or the quality of their services, to avoid further action by their users.