Airtel Chad fined $8.3M for deteriorating network

Chad's telecoms regulator has slapped Airtel Chad with a fine of 5 billion Central Africa CFA francs (US$8.3 million) for deteriorating network quality.

The Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Post (L'Autorite de Regulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes, or ARCEP) said Airtel had failed to meet quality of service standards in the country and was sanctioned for non-compliance with investment commitments it had made in a memorandum of understanding (MoU) last year.

After an audit of quality of services of mobile operators, the regulator found a notable degradation of quality on Airtel Chad's network, while service on Moov Africa's network had recorded a clear improvement in most cities, with the exception of coverage of the main roads which it said remains "mediocre."

Moov Africa Chad was given a formal notice from the regulator while Airtel Chad was given a formal notice and a fine.

The audit was conducted in line with an MoU signed between the regulator and the telecoms providers in July 2021.

At the time, Airtel and Moov agreed to invest XAF29 billion ($48.2 million) and XAF27 billion ($44.8 million) respectively in network development over three years, following complaints from customers regarding poor service quality.

A year after the MoU, the regulator seems unhappy with the network improvements so far – hence the warning for Moov and the fine for Airtel.

Airtel Chad is the biggest operator in the country with about 53.3% market share at the end of June 2023, according to statistics from market research company Omdia, a sister company of Connecting Africa. Moov Africa Chad had the remaining 46.7% market share.

Regulatory reparations

Chad is not the only African nation cracking down on bad telecoms services.

In May 2023, four mobile operators in Cameroon were fined XAF6 billion ($9.8 million at the time) for poor network quality by the country's regulator.

Regulators in Chad, Cameroon, Togo and Guinea have all cracked down on telecom operators for bad service quality over the past year. (Source: nakaridore on Freepik)

In June 2023, Togo's telecoms regulator threatened penalties for Moov Africa Togo and Togo Cellulaire (also known as Togocom) if they didn't improve quality of services to their customers.

This after Togocom in June 2022 had already received a fine of West African CFA francs 2.3 billion ($3.7 million at the time) for "serious breaches" of its obligation to provide a continuous, uninterrupted mobile service to its customers.

Also in June 2022, Moov Africa Togo was also given a formal notice from Togo's ARCEP for similar service issues.

In July 2022, Orange Guinea was fined 9.5 billion Guinean francs ($1.1 million at the time) for "failure to meet its service availability obligations" after a network outage left customers without key services for over 30 hours.

Related posts:

*Top image source: Allexxandar on Freepik.

— Paula Gilbert, Editor, Connecting Africa