Camtel, MTN Join Forces For Better Services

Cameroon’s incumbent telecoms operator, Camtel, on 27 June2014, signed a partnership agreement with Mobile Telephone Network, MTN Cameroon to help the latter better their services to users.

The agreement was sealed for Camtel by its General Manager, David Nkoto Emane and CEO Karl Toriola for MTN Cameroon. Under this agreement signed for a period of 10 (ten) years, Camtel will provide MTN with dark fibre optic capacities on Camtel’s national fibre optic backbone.

In a televised interview aired on CRTV Monday 30 June, Mr Nkoto Emane said “over the years, telecommunications operators in Cameroon each had their network and this was very costly to run. At the end of the day customers had to bear the brunt due to a relatively high cost of telecommunications services. But by sharing a common transmission infrastructure like we have done with MTN, the running cost will be low and consequently prices will also drop.”

Camtel, by this agreement, has asserted its role as the mainspring and the mainstay of telecommunications sector in the country. It should be mentioned here that this is not the first time Camtel is signing an important agreement with other operators: Cameroon’s third mobile telephony operator, Viettel, which is due to take off soon had already signed one with Camtel. In the days ahead, Camtel should sign a similar agreement with Orange Cameroon, said Camtel’s general manager. He also confirmed that very soon Camtel will seal the same deal with CRTV within the framework of the switch from analogue to digital television billed for 15 July 2015.

Mr Nkoto Emane recalled in the interview that Camtel signed a similar agreement in 2012 with Chad and since then Camtel delivers Internet access and services to this country through the fibre optic backbone. Negotiations are underway to also connect the Central Africa Republic to the fibre optic backbone. It should be noted that on the sidelines of the International Telecommunications Summit, ITU, which held in Bangkok, in November 2013, the country’s telecommunications minister had a working session with Mr Nkoto Emane, Camtel’s General Manager, to lay down the groundwork for future partnership and had it not been for the prevailing conflict in Central Africa Republic, this country would have long signed an agreement with Camtel This means our signals will no longer have to pass through Europe or Asia to get to South America,” the general manager said. The project will require the deployment of 5,900 Km of fibre optic sub-marine cables between Kribi and Fortaleza in Brazil. “In the same vein work is ongoing to connect with Nigeria from Kribi by fibre optic under the MAIN ONE project,” Mr Nkoto Emane added. Camtel is therefore undeniably on the path to making Cameroon a telecoms giant and an ICT hub in the Central Africa sub-region.

in order to also enjoy state-of-the-art telecommunications services. Negotiations are equally far advanced for Cameroon to be the first African country to have direct optical fibre connection with the South American continent. “

As the various operators federate forces to better serve customers, it becomes easier to check communication contents and curb cyber criminality, Mr Nkoto Emane assured.