jul 4, 2019 - Telecommunications: towards reducing the costs of telephone calls and SMS

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The Telecommunications Regulatory Agency has just rejected technical and tariff offers for operators and service providers.


The costs of the phone call and even the SMS could be lower in Cameroon. The Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ART), in its mission of protecting the consumer, wants to minimize the final rates applied. It has just rejected the Orange Cameroon operator's interconnection and access catalog for the 2019 financial year. A few weeks after MTN Cameroon .



Concretely explains Ali Soungui , Director of Licensing, Competition and Interconnection at ART, in the columns of Cameroon Tribune , it is in this document that each operator presents its technical and pricing offers of wholesale services applicable to operators and providers of electronic communications services.



"When you are an MTN subscriber, for example, and you call Orange, if MTN charges you 90 F per call minute, it would have to reverse to Orange 22 F corresponding to the interconnection for call termination. These rates are part of the operator's rate structure and represent between 15% and 18% of the retail rate, "he explains. Logically, if the interconnection rate goes down, the retail rate should also go down.



This is what ART is working on, in accordance with the regulations in force that instruct the direction of interconnection rates towards costs. The Agency has led CAMTEL to lower the prices of leased lines by more than 71% between 2014 and 2018, as well as international capacity tariffs, by more than 70% between 2014 and 2018. However, retail rates remained stable since 2016.



MTN and Orange were therefore asked to review the offer made to electronic communications service providers, in particular the reduction of wholesale SMS tariffs, the revenue-sharing grid for services allowing access, from a phone, to voice data sources, the insertion of a USSD codes offer (standard for transmitting information on GSM signaling channels) at reasonable rates.



It should be remembered that one of ART's duties is to oversee the application of legislative and regulatory texts relating to Telecommunications and Information and Communication Technologies; ensure that access to networks open to the public takes place under objective, transparent and non-discriminatory conditions; to ensure fair and healthy competition in the Telecommunications and Information and Communication Technologies sector; sanction operators' breaches of their obligations as well as anti-competitive practices

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