In a statement issued Wednesday (July 3rd), Cameroon’s Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ART) announced financial sanctions against local affiliates of the French groups Orange, South African MTN and Vietnamese Viettel for recurrent failures to comply with regulations. force in the identification of subscribers.
Indeed, the three telecom operators are accused of “recurring deficiencies observed” in the implementation of a decree dated September 3, 2015 setting the terms of identification of subscribers and terminals including “the marketing of sim cards pre- activated, the marketing of SIM cards in the streets, the possession by individuals of more than three SIM cards and the activation of numbers without prior identification.
Thus, MTN Cameroon and Viettel Cameroon each receive a penalty of 1 billion FCFA, while the company will have to pay XOF 1.5 billion FCFA. This decision, according to the ART, intervenes “after several missions of control followed by formal notices and in accordance with the regulation in force”.
In its statement, the regulator indicates, moreover, that “decisions of formal notice” were sent to the three operators to comply, “within one month, the prescriptions of their specifications Following “the persistent degradation of the quality of service of electronic communications networks”.
For the moment, no official reaction is registered in the camp of the three companies concerned.
