Senegal to allocate 5G licenses to telcos

Senegal's telecommunications regulator (L'Autorite de Regulation des Telecommunications et des Postes, or ARTP) announced that it will allocate 5G licenses to telecom operators by the end of July.

ARTP Director General Abdou Karim Sall made the announcement to the media as part of the Authority's ten priorities for 2023 and said that a provisional date of May 31, 2023, has been set for the "launch of the call for competition" for 5G license extensions.

Sall told journalists that there will not be new 5G licenses in the country, rather there will be an extension of existing 4G licenses for operators who wish to switch to 5G.

Local operator Sonatel first tested 5G in Senegal in November 2020 and ran a second 5G trial in December 2021. Free Senegal also launched an experimental phase of the fifth-generation technology in June 2022.

In July 2022, Sonatel, along with its parent company Orange, opened a 5G Lab in the capital, Dakar.

In March 2023, ARTP instructed Sonatel and Free to halt their network trials and submit a progress report to the regulator.

Sonatel (Orange Senegal) is the country's biggest mobile operator with around 11.7 million mobile users at the end of March 2023, according to statistics from market research company Omdia. Free Senegal and Expresso Telecom follow with 4.7 million and 3.8 million users, respectively.

Smaller operator Promobile had around 448,000 mobile users in the first quarter of 2023 and Hayo Telecom had just 200 subscribers.

Omdia estimates that only about 22.5% of Senegal's mobile users were using 4G services at the end of 2022, with almost 68.5% using 3G and 9% still on 2G. Analysts forecast that 4G uptake will reach 50% of all Senegalese users by 2027, and 5G uptake will top 7% by 2027.

Roaming deal moves forward

Senegal's regulator also announced that it would implement a national roaming agreement this month that would be "free form for the consumer."

"This solidarity tool will make up for the lack of telephone coverage for operators who are not present in certain localities," it said.

ARTP Director General Abdou Karim Sall speaks to the media. (Source: ARTP)

The roaming agreement was announced last month with Sall saying at the time that talks were underway between the country's operators Orange, Free and Expresso Telecom to lay the necessary framework.

Some of the other key priorities from ARTP for the year were a six-month computer security project to protect against possible cybercrime attacks, the implementation of a system to control the financial and telephone flows of operators, and an improvement of coverage and quality of service.

Sall also announced the development of an economic space for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) with tariff regulation adapted to host operator relations with MVNOs.

*Top image source: Freepik

— Paula Gilbert, Editor, Connecting Africa