- Management of bonuses, cost of the internet, etc.
- Operators open to dialogue
- Planned meeting with consumer representatives
It is a meeting between the regulatory authority for electronic communications and posts (ARCEP) and mobile telephone operators which comes at a time when calls from Burkinabè consumers for a drop in pricing applied by the three operators, Onatel SA, Orange Burkina and Telecel Faso. 10 opted megabytes (MB) at 100 F CFA valid for two days; 1 gig at 1000 CFA francs for a week or 2500 for a month; 10 gigas to 15,000 F… in short, the costs of the Internet connection and the costs of the services in general offered by the operators are considered too high, the validity of the bonuses on their call credits is also perceived as not sufficient when this is not It is not the readability of the offers that is called into question.
4 points in debate
To find answers to these consumer concerns, the meeting between ARCEP and telephone operators focused on four points, namely: the legibility of telephone operators’ offers; the cost of the Internet connection; the management of bonuses and the period of validity of offers. On this last point, the practice so far has been for operators to crush offers within a given time frame. During their meeting with the regulatory authority, the operators expressed their support for an extension of the validity periods for offers. But not without wishing that they would be given a week’s time to refer to their technical teams in order to study the terms and feasibility.
Concerning the pricing of the Internet connection, the executive secretary of ARCEP, Patrice Compaoré indicated that the operators have made a commitment to provide, “within a short time”, information for the realization of a study prior to the regulatory body level. And to promise: “We will work to get out a cost that can be affordable to consumers”. But this stage will take time, according to Patrice Compaoré, who justifies this by the need to adjust the costs according to other countries, in particular WAEMU, in order to have “realistic” costs in the long term.
With regard to bonuses, the operators have made a commitment to work on their proper management by consumers. As for the readability of the offers, the bosses of the telephony are, here too, committed to ensuring better communication, with the aim that the consumer understands the offers down to the detail.
ARCEP claims to be “sensitive to consumer demands. “The ARCEP, vis-à-vis its missions, is perfectly in line with the legitimate demands that have been expressed in recent times, not only through organized consumer structures but also through social networks”, assured Patrice Compaore.
After the telephone operators, ARCEP has an appointment in the coming days with the structures for the defense of consumer interests.
Beranger Kabre
Box: telephone operators sensitive to claims but…
Telephone operators are not insensitive to the concerns of users. But this does not mean that they do not defend the current costs of telephone services. According to Boris Compaoré, managing director of Telecel Faso and head of the umbrella of operators, they are already facing enormous difficulties. In question, the international situation with the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war. A high cost of leasing fiber infrastructure from the ports (due to Burkina’s isolation), not to mention an unfavorable national security context. By way of example, Boris Compaoré revealed that around 500 infrastructure sites are non-functional across the territory, 200 of which have been vandalized. This, to evoke “investments in pure losses”. Despite these constraints, added to a context of inflation (14%) in 2022, the telephony sector remained one of the few to maintain its rates offered to customers, maintained Boris Compaoré.
