Following its refusal to pay the new price for telecoms license, the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts (ARCEP) of Benin has announced it is ending Glo Mobile’s operations in the West African country. Glo Mobile is a subsidiary of the Nigerian telecom group Globacom.
Globacom is yet to issue any official communication regarding this development.
The telecom regulator officially notified the company of this decision on December 18, 2017, following the failure in September 2017 of the negotiations initiated with the State since June 2017 for the renewal of its telecom license. It was revealed that Glo Mobile would have refused to pay the new price of the telecom license, set by the Beninese state.
In its decision, ARCEP requires Glo Mobile to stop selling new SIM cards throughout the country, to also stop the sale of its recharge cards. The company must notify its subscribers of the impending cessation of its activities and invite them to consume definitively the telephone credits available on their accounts within thirty days of the notification sent to them. Glo Mobile will also have to maintain its passive colocation infrastructure with other operators for a period of three months.
In the space of four months, the Beninese telecom market has lost two mobile operators. Bell Benin Communications SA preceded Glo Mobile on August 2, 2017. Only three players, Libercom, Spacetel MTN and Moov, remain on the market.
