Initially expected in November 2013, the change in dialling procedure will now take place in the first quarter of 2014. This was the announcement made by the Telecommunications Regulation Agency (TRA). The delay was due to technical adjustments being made during the operation’s implementation as well as difficulties encountered by phone service providers in meeting the initial deadlines.
The new 9-digit dialling system must be in place in the first quarter of 2014, reiterates the TRA, not only because the current number system has run-out of new numbers that can be issued by phone service providers, but especially because of the addition of a third provider to the market – Viettel – which had delayed its service launch until early 2014.
According to the TRA’s figures, Cameroon’s 20 million inhabitants will soon have four phone service providers, including MTN Cameroon which has 8 of the 13 million consumers (compared to Orange Cameroon’s 5 million) and Camtel, the public landline provider, which has had approximately 220,000 customers for years now.