Togolese regulator ARCEP has issued a formal warning to Moov Africa Togo over its network outages.
At the start of this month, ARCEP deemed Moov to have committed “serious breaches of its obligation of permanent, continuous and regular availability of mobile electronic communications services.” The regulator issued its decision on 2nd June, giving Moov three months to meet these service obligations before facing sanctions.
TeleGeography reports that Moov has agreed to “implement the procedures, equipment, protections and redundancies necessary to guarantee the quality and availability of services under the conditions defined by the regulator.”
Whether it will keep this promise remains to be seen. The regulator imposed sanctions on Moov Africa Togo in November 2020 for “violating its terms of reference”, and in May 2021, ARCEP fined the operator XOF593 million (US$1.1 million) over “serious and lasting breaches of its obligation to provide its electronic communications networks and services on a permanent and continuous basis.”
In the same month, ARCEP summoned Moov Africa Togo to a public hearing in which it demanded an explanation for network outages that lasted from June-September 2020 and March-April 2021. The issues evidently persist.
Moov Africa Togo has attributed the outages to “prolonged” power cuts by the CEET and damage to cables by Togocom or contracted construction firms. However, ARCEP countered that this explanation is “insufficient” given the operator’s alleged XOF113 billion investment into improving the quality of its services.
