Cameroon Telecommunications (CAMTEL) is 25. The parastatal was established in 1998 with the merger of the Telecommunications Department of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and INTELCAM.
Over the years, it has served as the country’s most reliable and efficient service provider. It is this feat that its General Manager, Judith Yah Sunday epse Achidi brought under review as she launched the anniversary celebration, September 7, 2023.
The enterprise, she noted, has outgrown its origins in every positive facet. “We are now talking about the digital world. Like everywhere else on the planet, our country has adopted new vocabularies, new concepts and new uses: the Internet, Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, fibre optics, Big Data, artificial intelligence and so on. In our business, we are constantly on the lookout. Consumers are increasingly demanding. They want more proximity. You can’t give up. That is why CAMTEL launched the BLUE Brand two years ago.”
This success and evolution, she noted, could only be possible with the relentless input of the staff – past and present – who burn the midnight oil.
In her anniversary launch word, Judith Yah Sunday was keen on addressing clients’ worries, indicators of the parastatal’s wide reach. “We understand the concerns, the expectations, the frustration and sometimes the anger of users. All of these are legitimate,” she remarked.
CAMTEL, she noted, is bent on providing sustainable solutions to these worries. “We are well aware of the fact that CAMTEL does not succeed in everything, that it often stumbles and that it faces doubts at times. But we are also aware that difficulties are not a death sentence, and that even if the slope gets steeper, we must have the will to keep moving forward.”
It is this feedback, she explained, that has enabled the enterprise grow from strength to strength, earning it the prestigious role of “the incumbent operator.”
CAMTEL currently manages the 12,000-kilometre national optical fibre backbone. This remarkable feat according to its GM, “will soon be extended by 4,000 more kilometres.”
“People forget all too often that CAMTEL provides this optical fibre infrastructure to all operators and to a wide range of organisations” she stated, citing other major moves of the entity.
“While it is true that in the eyes of the general public, CAMTEL is at times one product or service behind,” the poised administrator stressed, “the collective unconscious tends to omit the central and innovative role CAMTEL plays in the field of communication infrastructure”.
After going strong, steady and innovative for 25 years, CAMTEL is just getting started.