Cameroonians to benefit from highspeed broadband

Larry Uchena climbed to higher ground, raised his cellphone in the air and spun it around to find a signal. "This is how we get network coverage whenever we want to make phone calls," he told ChinAfrica.

Uchena. manager of the Santa Meteo Radio in northwest Cameroon, said only three out of the 10 villages which make up the Santa administrative region have this kind of network availability. The other seven are completely cut off from the telecommunications network.

"It is pretty difficult to communicate with reporters in the field for live reports. They need to get to strategic locations to get good reception," Uchena lamented.

Poor reach

Like Uchena, Simplice Fogha, manager of the lone community telecom center in the Santa subdivision, finds it difficult to perform his daily duties. Most users who visit the center for the first time leave dissatisfied. The center, part of the 191 community telecenters operational in Cameroon, was robbed about two years ago. It now has only 10 computers and has been abandoned by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Most computer software used at the center is pirated.

"We have no choice," Uchena said. "A 2015 report by the Supreme State Audit Office indicated that 76.4 percent of state institutions, including ministries, use pirated software. But we are hoping things will change since Prime Minister [Philémon Yang] has set up a committee for observance of technology and control of state software packs."

Despite the low quality of network services and equipment, Uchena and Fogha are among the 6.7 percent of Cameroon's population with access to Internet services. Statistics at the Telecommunications Regulatory Board (TRB) indicate only 11.8 percent of Cameroonians own computers.

Professor Sammy Beban Chumbow of the ICT University in Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, says the low Internet penetration levels and use of information and communication technology (ICT) in Cameroon are intertwined with the low rates of computer literacy. The quality of telecom services also makes citizens unenthusiastic about ICT.

A knowledge-based economy is the driver behind emerging nations, Chumbow told ChinAfrica. If the Cameroon Government truly wants to achieve its goal of becoming an emergent nation by 2035, it must first emerge from using traditional methods of doing things and embrace modern ICT.

Chumbow added that the low utilization of the Public Investment Budget and slow industrialization process were connected to the fact that most activities are still done the old way without the use of technology.

"Cameroon's telecommunication industry has suffered collateral losses of $782.4 million emanating from poor networks from 2000 to 2014," said Cletus Awah, leader of the NGO Coalition of Civil Society Organizations of the North West Region.

Major challenges

All the country's telecom network providers - MTN Cameroon, Orange Cameroon, and Nexttel Cameroon - depend on the state-run Cameroon Telecommunications Corp. (CAMTEL), the only provider of fixed phone lines in the country. CAMTEL's Internet and cellphone services lag behind, showed a study sampling views of some 3,000 users in the North West Region.

According to the TRB, the use of CAMTEL's fixed phones is declining because it is not doing much to upgrade its old and dilapidated equipment. The challenges faced by CAMTEL affect the entire telecom sector as the country's private and public audiovisual media depend solely on it. The quality of Internet service, decried by many users, is also hindering the growth of e-services.

Chinese boosters

However, government officials say once the ongoing projects are completed, Cameroon will become a telecom hub for the entire Central African subregion.

Among these projects is the installation of the nearly 1,100-km-long Nigeria-Cameroon Submarine Cable System (NCSCS) undertaken by Chinese contractor Huawei Marine Networks. It is Cameroon's first wholly-owned submarine cable and directly links Kribi in Cameroon with Lagos in Nigeria. It is expected to provide a scorchingly fast 12.8 terabits per second of capacity to broadband users in both countries by the end of this year. Cloud service provider Akamai Technologies' State of the Internet Report 2014 showed Cameroon's average Internet speed last year was less than 1 megabit per second.

According to the TRB, Cameroon is negotiating with Brazil for an extension of the NCSCS, codenamed the MainOne, to the Port of Fortaleza in Brazil. It will enable Cameroon to communicate directly with Latin America and Nigeria without signals transiting through Europe, particularly Britain and France. At the launch of the project in June, then Minister of Post and Telecommunication Jean Pierre Biyiti Bi Essam and CAMTEL Director General David Nkotto Emane said its success and importance hinge on high-speed connectivity and low cost, which would benefit citizens.

TRB officials have also said that the government is setting up a 6,600-km fiber optical backbone (FOB) with technical know-how from Huawei Technologies Cameroon, a subsidiary of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies. The FOB will connect countries in the Central African subregion and contribute to the development of commercial exchanges and electronic communication among them.

Cameroon's submarine optical fiber landing station - a type of telecom highway to facilitate the transportation of broadband data at a reduced cost - went operational on July 22. TRB Corporate Communications Officer Jessie Ekukole Atogho said the new landing station, which adds to the capacity of the older one in Douala, Cameroon's largest city, connects the country with Europe and Asia.

The government is also implementing smaller projects to boost the telecom sector. These include the Public Key Infrastructure, a system of digital certificates, for security in online transactions; the construction of metropolitan optical loops in Yaounde and Douala; and the introduction of an e-post project connecting some 234 post offices across the country.

Private and public institutions are at work too. The MTN, Orange, Ecobank Cameroon, and the University of Yaounde I, together with local pharmacies, have begun introducing e-services such as e-banking, e-learning and e-health.

(Reporting from Cameroon)