(Business in Cameroon) - A delegation of telecommunications heads from Burkina Faso visited Cameroon to learn from Cameroon’s experience in fibre-optics. “Cameroon is ahead of us in the area of fibre-optics as it already has this infrastructure in place. South-South cooperation will help us to draw from their experience when putting our own infrastructure in place,” stated Lamoussa Oualbeogo, the delegation chief.
In the advice he gave, the Managing Director of Camtel, David Nkotto Emane, Cameroon’s public telecommunications company, recommended that the Burkinabe delegation not entrust the management of fibre-optic infrastructure to a private sector entity. “If you want to develop Burkina Faso’s telecom infrastructure, the fibre-optic backbone should be handled by a State-run organisation. This will be more beneficial for the country relative to this being done by a private company,” he stated.
Burkina Faso has just signed a contract with the Chinese firm Huawei to lay over 5,444 km of fibre-optic cables in that country. Cameroon already has a network of over 6,000 km which, according to government plans, will be increased to 10,000 km in the medium term.