TELECOMS-INTERNET THE DIGITAL SPRING

The arrival of new operators in the country, a real revolution, has led to faster, cheaper communication.

Commu n i c a t i on prices are falling in Cameroon, long reputed to be the region’s most expensive market. Today it is impossible to walk 100 metres without coming across billboards advertising one of the main companies’ “special offers” or public operator Camtel’s cheap, high-speed Internet products. Three factors may account for the change.

First, in December 2012 a third mobile telephony license, 3G, was attributed to the Cameroonian subsidiary of Vietnam’s Viettel. Second, the virtual Eto’o Telecom operator’s prices (using the Set Mobile network) have shaken up the market. Third, the investments made by the government and the main companies (Camtel, Orange and MTN Cameroon) in recent years have improved the transmission infrastructure and increased its density. The result: prices are ten times lower than 10 years ago and the number of mobile phone subscribers tops 11 million. Since the market opened up in 2000, the sector has posted two trillion FCFA (nearly €3.05 billion) in sales and created some 1,500 direct and nearly 300,000 indirect jobs.

The State, which has already collected 500 billion FCFA in taxes from the industry, is thinking of attributing at least two new licenses, which would put the estimated number of additional subscribers at eight million between now and 2015.“Two new operators can be introduced without rearranging the spectrum of frequencies with regard to the availability of frequencies in the GSM and 3G bands,” Post and Telecommunications Minister JeanPierre Biyiti Bi Essam said in December 2012 shortly before granting Viettel the telephony license after competitive bidding by the industry’s biggest companies. Viettel has promised to start a digital revolution with its investment, estimated at 200 billion FCFA, by launching international-standard services. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that this will strengthen Cameroon’s digital vitality, which translates into a growing number of telecommunications and Internet companies operating with industry leaders as subcontractors, Internet access suppliers or equipment manufacturers.

SPEEDING UP THE INTERNET

Cameroon’s digital backbone is another important issue. “The government,” says Mr. Biyiti Bi Essam, “has launched a sweeping upgrade programme that will increase our fibre optic network to 5,000 kilometres of cables.” Its installation in Kyé-Ossi (in the south) and Kousséri (in the far north) will allow coverage of the 10 regions, approximately 40 cities and around 100 arrondissements. An agreement signed by President Biya and Chad’s President, Idriss Déby Itno, also facilitates the high-speed interconnection between their two countries. Construction of Yaoundé’s urban loop is under way.

A second underwater West Africa Cable System (WACS) landing station, which will reinforce the SAT-3 underwater cable network’s landing station in Douala, is being built in Limbe, in the southwest, after an accord between the MTN group with the government. Talks on laying the African Coast to Europe (ACE) cable, whose landing station will be in Kribi, and that of the Main One, are very advanced. “In addition to diversifying points of access to the global information highways and boosting our country’s capacities,” says the Post and Telecommunications Ministry, “there will be a major impact on communication prices, which will fall.”

Cameroon finally has a stake in the Central Africa Backbone (CAB) project supported by the World Bank. The country aims to make the most of these new accesses in order to narrow the digital divide in the areas of health, education, training (see box) and technological development tools intended for poor areas, which will benefit from the installation of community telecentres where people will be able to use the Internet in the heart of the forest or savannah and “communicate without distinction at affordable prices,” says Mr. Biyiti Bi Essam.

E-GOVERNANCE TOWARDS DEMATERIALISED ADMINISTRATION

The e-government project, dormant for several years, seems back on track. In 2011 the National Information and Communication Technologies Agency (ANTIC) drafted the National E-government Development Strategy in partnership with the United Nations University/ International Institute for Software Technology (UNU/ IIST) and with the contribution of national government agencies. The aim: to promote the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in public services, particularly with regard to staff organisation. “We could call meetings by text messaging, process files and send them on up by e-mail, obtain copies of birth certificates or criminals online,” says minister Biyiti Bi Essam. “The goal is to improve the services government workers render and strengthen processes, notably democratic ones.” A national Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) already exists to secure electronic exchanges and authenticate exchanges within the government, and the dematerialisation of procedures is a reality in the customs service. In the long run, citizens may even be asked to participate, through official portals, in the improvement of decentralisation programmes.

By François BAMBOU