The number of mobile telephone operators in the country has moved from two over ten years ago when MTN and Orange controlled the market to four today with the entry of Viettel (with commercial name “Nexttel”) and CAMTEL that is yet to takeoff.

This signals competition in the sector, at least looking at the exponential growth in operators. But the quality of service and other benefits that would have come with competition still leave much to be desired.

Making a call or sending a message through the networks of the mobile telephone companies in the country continuous to pose some problems.

“The number you’re trying to call is not available for the moment, try it next time,” “the telephone number you’re calling is incorrect” or “the telephone of the subscriber you are trying to reach is off,” are some of the frequent but distasteful feedbacks helpless subscribers get from the operators when they want to make calls. The same holds for messages. “Message not sent, or failure delivery, try again,” or “safe to drafts” are at times characteristic of the operators.

The regulator says service quality is directly linked with the network, meaning once the network is saturated, the quality of service is affected given that everybody is struggling to go through the limited pathway.

According to Tsanga Ebode Justin Aimé, head of the communication and documentation unit of the Telecommunication Regulatory Board (TRB), most operators are struggling to step up the magnitude of their equipment to improve deteriorating service quality.

The network the country has today was put in place for two operators in the yesteryears with less than eight million subscribers. Today with eight-digit telephone numbering, the number of subscribers has moved to about 16 million.

When the numbering moved to nine digits as from November 21, 2014, the number of subscribers will skyrocket but the network will be more or less the same. Experts say for the increase in operators to be commensurate with improved service delivery, there should be an improvement in telecoms infrastructure.

Another determinant factor in service delivery is energy. Its intermittent supply affects quality of service as the operator has to move from one alternative energy supply source to the other.

“But when the regulator realizes that the operator does to respect the terms of their contracts, fines are meted out to them,” Mr Tsanga Ebode said.

This was the case in August 2009 when the two existing operators (at the time) were fined for flouting the terms of their contracts and in 2012 when they were warned of sanctions if services offered to subscribers were continually poor.

Sanctions for operators today are in compliance with Law No. 2010/013 of 21 December 2010 governing electronic communications.

It stipulates in its Article 69 (7) that, “operators who do not respect the terms of their contracts are liable to fines ranging from FCFA 100 to FCFA 200 million.”