One of Senegal’s major telecoms companies, Sonatel, has been asked to remit 21.3 million Euros which is about 3 per cent of its annual revenue in 2015 to the industry regulator, the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Post (ARTP), as fine for various violations notably inability to meet set requirements for customer service.
According to an official communication by the ARTP, Sonatel is to pay XAF 13.959 billion for not making its customer service line to be free for its subscribers; furthermore, the operator contradicted regulations passed in 2014 that enforced all operators to ensure that calls placed to the customer care service are automatically filtered.
Before announcing the fine, ARTP said it had warned Sonatel severally about its non-compliance. Specifically, it said it issued the warning at the end of 2014 after which it examined the operator’s defense.
Sonatel was also accused of establishing several radio relay links that were not declared to ARTP, other operators were also found guilty in this regard.
“They must receive prior permission before placing any base station in the field. The fees for the equipment are based on what the operators declare in January each year,” the regulator stated.
Sonatel is also being asked to pay additional XAF 8.9 billion for undeclared sites while Tigo was asked to pay XAF 6.6 billion for the same offence. The regulator is yet to ascertain whether and what Expresso will be paying but it promised to make an announcement when it has concluded its assessment of Expresso’s network next month.
Sonatel is yet to issue an official statement concerning the fines.
Renewed licenses
Just last month, ARTP confirmed it had renewed the operating licenses of Sonatel for a total consideration of XOF100 billion (USD171 million), including the extension of its scope to offer 4G.
Quoting Article 23 of Law No. 2011-01 of 24 February 2011 on Telecommunications Code, the regulator said it is renewing the operating concessions of Sonatel for fixed, 2G and 3G services for a period of 17 years – starting 8 August 2017 – while also licensing mobile arm Orange to offer 4G LTE for a similar period, from the date of the award. Sonatel paid XOF32 billion for the 4G license which comprised 10MHz of spectrum at 1800MHz and 10MHz in the 800MHz band.
