An agreement to increase the capacity of optical fibre has been signed between public enterprise Cameroon Telecommunications (CAMTEL) and mobile giants MTN in a bid to revive the partnership between the two companies.

The agreement, signed last Sunday, paid particular attention to CAMTEL, the sole operator of fixed telephony in Cameroon and awakened memories of the battle fought by mobile operators, Orange and MTN, against monopoly management of the optical fibre allocated statutorily to CAMTEL.

A CAMTEL spokesperson told the press: "It was a question, on one hand, to revisit the status of claims between CAMTEL and MTN Cameroon, but especially for CAMTEL put at the disposal of MTN’s optical fibre capacity Cameroon enabling it to improve the quality of services to its clients.

"It should be remembered that the importance of terms agreed in this exchange, return CAMTEL as the backbone telecom operator in the country, which effectively assumes the major role of the secular arm of the State Development both infrastructure and telecommunications services in Cameroon.”

MTN and Orange had previously accused the public operator, not only of prohibiting access to infrastructure it is responsible for, but also of having a quality infrastructure as well as limited capacity.

This attempt to empower mobile operators via fibre optic controlled CAMTEL, is also responsible for the construction, by MTN Cameroon, of a landing point for the submarine cable WACS, in Limbe in the South West, where infrastructure was recently surrendered to the State of Cameroon.

Orange Cameroon, has also announced the arrival of a submarine cable ACE and the landing point is at Kribi in the South Region of the country.