Business
Democratic Republic of Congo launches universal service fund to boost connectivity
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced the launch of a fund for access and universal service to improve connectivity, reports ITWeb.
Leon Juste Ibombo, Minister of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, said the fund would support communications infrastructure and services in rural and landlocked areas of the country.
Operators have been informed that they will be contributing 2 percent of their turnover to the new fund.
According to the Minister, the fund is an active step taken by the government in conjunction with the industry’s stakeholders to address poor network coverage and poor quality of service in the country. He said the government has been sanctioning wireless operators, especially Airtel and MTN, since 2014, yet there has been no significant improvement in the quality of service. In addition to the new fund, he also issued an ultimatum to the carriers to improve the quality of their service within 2 months.
Source: Telecompaper