NuRan Wireless obtains operating license in Cameroon

Canadian telecoms infrastructure provider NuRAN Wireless has obtained a Category 1 license in Cameroon.

This will enable it to build and operate shared passive infrastructure for the country's electronic communications networks.

The license is not the company's first foray in the West African country. It already has a contract with Orange Cameroon to deploy 122 telecom sites under the Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) business model.

"This license allows the Company to not only deliver its NaaS business model for Orange Cameroon (Orange) but to expand its business by allowing for multiple mobile network operators (MNOs) or tenants on sites," NuRAN Wireless said in a statement.

NuRAN Wireless African expansion

The Cameroonian operating license is in line with NuRAN's African expansion strategy.

In January 2023, it signed a ten-year agreement with Orange Madagascar for the deployment of up to 500 rural networking sites on the country's east coast by 2025.

Under the NaaS model, the project will support 2G and 3G networks with different categories of sites to cover different population densities and coverage areas.

NuRAN Wireless license in Cameroon will ensure that its NaaS business model will help the country's telecommunications companies. (Source: Image by evening_tao on Freepik).

The MTN Group has also signed similar agreements with NuRAN in Sudan, South Sudan, Namibia, and Côte d'Ivoire.

According to Ecofin Agency, NuRAN has the ambition to have 10,000 telecom sites under contract in Africa in the coming years.

Furthermore, the publication reported that NuRAN has 4,642 telecom sites under contract in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, South Sudan, Namibia, Côte d'Ivoire, and Madagascar.

Cameroon mobile mix

The license will allow NuRAN Wireless to build the infrastructure it needs to provide NaaS services to operators.

Statistics from market research company Omdia, a sister company of Connecting Africa, show Orange Cameroon is the biggest operator in the country with an estimated 12 million subscribers in the third quarter of 2023.

MTN Cameroon is the second biggest operator in the country with 11 million users around the same period, even though the company has been in the news for the wrong reasons.

MTN Cameroon had its accounts frozen in September 2022 due to a bizarre case that stems from a dispute between Cameroonian business mogul Ahmadou Baba Danpullo, who owns Bestinver Group, and South Africa's First National Bank (FNB) over a real estate loan.

To remedy that situation, MTN Group vowed to invest $225 million over three years towards Cameroon's digital economy.

Nexttel had almost 4 million mobile users, putting it in third place, and Camtel had just 587,00 mobile customers.

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

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa