The four main mobile operators in the Nigerien market – Airtel, Zamani, Moov Africa, and Niger Telecoms – have been fined by the Nigerien telecommunications regulatory authority, ARCEP.
According to the Ecofin news agency, ARCEP has announced that a fine of 4.32 billion CFA francs (approximately US$7.3 million) is to be imposed on the operators, all of which received the fine for failing to meet their quality of service (QoS) commitments. Zamani has been fined 1.36 billion CFA francs; Airtel, 1.35 billion CFA francs; Niger Telecoms, 1.19 billion CFA francs; and Moov Africa, 402.5 million CFA francs (CFA 1 billion = about US$1.687 million).
This news, announced last week but only being widely reported now, is especially interesting in the light of yesterday’s story about consumer protests against operators in Burkina Faso, and, in late May, the news that Cameroon’s CamTel, MTN, Orange and Viettel had together been fined US$9.8 million for poor quality of service.
As in Cameroon, there had been a fair amount of warning in Niger that this would happen. In August 2022, ARCEP warned the four operators about quality control in a dozen areas and gave them four months to address the issues.
Follow-ups in those areas earlier this year revealed some improvement, but clearly not enough. Niger Telecoms’ correction rate was 20.68%, Zamani’s was 22.5%, Airtel’s was 55.68%, and Moov Africa’s correction rate was 62.2%.s
