| This is an ARCEP press release |
ARCEP, as part of its control mission and in accordance with Order no. 005/MENTD/CAB dated August 12, 2022 defining quality indicators for 2G/3G/4G mobile services and their thresholds, conducted from November 3, 2022 to January 13, 2023 the third national campaign to measure the quality of services offered by two mobile operators Togo Cellulaire and Moov Africa Togo.
As a reminder, ARCEP conducted the first national campaign in the second half of 2021. This campaign revealed the poor quality of mobile services throughout the national territory.
Eighteen (18) months later, at the end of this last national campaign, ARCEP took noticea slight improvement in service quality of around 8% for Togo Cellulaire and 5% for Moov Africa Togo. The quality of voice and Internet services offered by the two mobile operators therefore still does not meet regulatory compliance thresholds for more than half of the sixteen measured indicators. More specifically, at the national level, the compliance rate is 48.6% for Togo Cellulaire and 37% for Moov Africa Togo.
This poor quality is particularly evident in terms of access to voice and Internet services. As an illustration, for two mobile operators, less than 2% of sites are matched for voice call setup time, which is thresholded at less than 8 seconds, and less than 8% are matched for voice call rate. Failed to download website in 3G. Regarding the 4G download speed, the threshold of which is set at 25 Mbps, the compliance rate is 7% for Moov Africa Togo and 34% for Togo Cellulaire.
ARCEP notes with regret that, despite numerous inquiries addressed to the two mobile operators, it is clear that the quality of the service has not significantly improved. This slowness in resolving quality of service issues is mainly due to insufficient investment in network infrastructure by Togo Cellulaire and Moov Africa Togo.
Faced with this constant breach of its service quality obligations which cause serious harm to consumers, On March 14, 2023, in accordance with the regulatory framework, ARCEP opened the sanctions procedure against Togo Cellular and Moov Africa Togo in order to force them to make the necessary investments and take all measures to solve the problem of service quality throughout the national territory under criminal penalty.