The quality of telecom services remains a major concern in Cameroon. To address this, the regulator regularly engages in discussions with all stakeholders in the sector.

In Cameroon, between 25 and 30 billion CFA francs ($45.2 million to $54.2 million) have been invested in fiber optics, according to the Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ART). However, the regulator believes that this infrastructure remains largely underutilized, even as consumers continue to complain of declining service quality across the country, with dropped calls, unstable browsing, and declining speeds.

The issue was discussed during a meeting held on Tuesday, September 16, between ART and mobile phone operators MTN and Orange. ART Director General Philémon Zoo Zame emphasized the need for better coordination between stakeholders, with a view to pooling resources and achieving economic efficiency. The operators, for their part, called for more favorable pricing conditions to make fiber access more economically sustainable for their networks.

For Cameroonian mobile operators, fiber is not a direct commercial service but rather a crucial infrastructure for backhaul, i.e., the routing of traffic between mobile phone antennas and the central nodes of their networks. In reality, they are not authorized to operate fiber to the subscriber themselves, which makes them entirely dependent on Camtel, the incumbent operator that holds the monopoly on the deployment and operation of fiber optics. The public company provides operators with international capacity via a 15,812 km national network.

However, Camtel faces persistent financial difficulties. In 2022, the Ministry of Finance revealed that the operator lacked the resources to finance its investments and was accumulating a debt of 600 billion CFA francs. These constraints limit its ability to fully develop the network, ensure its maintenance, and quickly respond to the growing needs of operators.

Access to raw fiber optics does not automatically guarantee improved quality of service. In a press release published in February 2025, Camtel criticized Orange Cameroon for limiting itself to the use of dark fiber, without leveraging alternative solutions such as managed capacity, which offer automatic redundancy in the event of a failure or outage. According to the incumbent operator, adopting these solutions could ensure service continuity and reduce interruptions for subscribers. Other challenges cited by telecom operators include the supply of electrical power to telecom sites and insecurity in certain areas.

Source: Agence Ecofin