etisalat subsidiary asked to stop service in Benin

17 July 2007

Dubai: An etisalat subsidiary was suspended from providing telecom services in the West African nation of Benin on Saturday following a dispute with the government.

Atlantique Telecom, which is 70 per cent owned by the UAE telecom provider, was one of two operators shuttered for changing its names and operator without governmental approval.

The regulator suspended the licences of Moov, Atlantique's brand name in Benin, and South Africa's MTN. The suspension resulted in the loss of service for Atlantique's 340,000 Benin customers.

etisalat chairman Mohammad Hassan Omran said the company was working with the Benin government to quickly resolve the issue.

"We have always operated with due respect to the law in each of these countries [we operate in]," he said. "We're confident that we will be able to address the questions posed to us by the Benin authorities and therefore shorten the inconvenience for our customers."

"We look forward to positive talks this week," he added.

Last week, Benin authorities threatened to shut down their networks if they did not sign new contracts including a $50 million, 500 per cent rise in the operator fee. Benin's Transitional Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority then declared null and void the operations to change Telecel into Moov and Areeba into MTN. "It appears, following a study of the dossiers supplied by the two operators, that this is indeed a substitution of the operator, and not a change of trading name as claimed by Telecel Benin SA and Spacetel Benin SA," it said.

New contracts

The regulator says the new contracts are needed because both networks had changed their names and operators without its permission.

MTN's Benin network was previously operated by Spacetel Benin under the Areeba brand, and currently has 514,000 customers.

Atlantique Telecom's Moov network was previously part of the Telecel group. Benin has close to eight million people.

-With inputs from Reuters