MTN, Airtel sign roaming deal in Congo

The Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Post (L'Agence de Regulation des Postes et des Communications Electroniques, ARPCE) has announced a roaming agreement between MTN and Airtel in Congo.

Under the deal, MTN Congo will open its network to Airtel Congo's subscribers at eight sites, with locations covered including Malele, Kissila, Kintamou and Liouesso.

Airtel Congo, for its part, will give access to its infrastructure to MTN Congo's subscribers at ten locations including Kayes, Tchicanou, Boulankio and Ketta, the regulator said in a statement.

(Source: Communication tower photo created by wirestock - www.freepik.com)

"For the ARPCE, this is a major leap in terms of, on the one hand, the promotion of consumer rights in the sense that it should allow everyone to fully benefit from electronic communications services and, on the other hand, it is up to one operator to take advantage of the other's facilities in order to serve its customers," the regulator explained.

ARPCE's director general, Louis-Marc Sakala, added that the regulator encourages the sharing of active and passive infrastructures, on a commercial basis, between operators of public networks of electronic communications, under conditions of fairness, non-discrimination, and equal access.

Roaming conditions

"However, national roaming should in no way replace the coverage commitments made in the context of the granting of mobile service licenses by incoming operators," Sakala continued.

"It should be noted that the supply of the national roaming service is the subject of a private law agreement, to be concluded freely between the operators concerned, respecting the objective technical and tariff conditions, based on the principle of equity, transparency and non-discrimination," the regulator concluded.

It will be interesting to see how the roaming deal will impact subscribers in the country as MTN Congo and Airtel Congo are the two biggest operators. According to Omdia, a sister company of Connecting Africa, MTN Congo is larger of the two with an estimated 61% market share and 3.3 million subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2022. Airtel Congo has a 39% market share with 2.1 million subscribers during the same period.

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*Top image source: Image by www.slon.pics on Freepik

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa