Airtel, other Telcos fined in Africa for missing QoS norm

NEW DELHI: African subsidiary of India's largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel and its two competitors have been penalised for not meeting quality of service standards by sector regulator ARCEP in west African country Burkina Faso.

ARCEP has imposed penalty of around 2.7 billion CFA (Rs 27 crore approximately) on Airtel, Telmob and Telecel. Maximum penalty of 1.08 billion CFA (Rs 10.8 crore) has been imposed on Telmob followed by 894 million (Rs 8.9 crore) CFA on Airtel and 724 million CFA (Rs 7.24 crore) on Telecel.

The penalty has been imposed on these operators after ARCEP carried out two rounds of quality of service audit being provided by them in May-June and November-December 2011 period.

"The decision was communicated to operators 8 February 2012, with all the information required to enable them to discharge these penalties." Officer of the Order at ARCEP Mathurin BAKO said in a statement of February 10, 2012.