(Business in Cameroon) – In a statement on August 28, the International Association of Consumers (Asicom) voiced strong dissatisfaction with the poor service from mobile operators Orange and MTN Cameroon. “For several days, it’s been nearly impossible to make calls or use the internet, causing financial losses and significant inconvenience to consumers,” Asicom said. The association also criticized these companies for staying silent on the issue and urged Cameroonian authorities to step in and penalize them.
The problem Asicom described has been going on for months and has gotten worse recently. Users often have to wait several minutes just to load a webpage as mobile connections become more unstable. Making phone calls has also become frustrating, with call quality being very poor, or even impossible at times.
Despite these ongoing issues, which have been happening more frequently since 2023, discussions between the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency, and the operators have not led to significant improvements. In May 2023, after inspecting the networks, the regulator fined all active telecom operators in the country a total of CFA6 billion.
This wasn’t the first time these companies were penalized. In December 2022, some of these operators promised to invest a total of CFA156 billion in 2023 to improve their increasingly criticized service quality. However, if these investments were made, they have yet to bring noticeable improvements to the services provided to customers.
