After a temporary halt in the broadcast of the Pope’s speech on CRTV tele on April 15, the signal was disrupted between the Director General of Cameroon Radio Television Charles Ndongo and the Director General of Cameroon Telecommunications, Judith Yah Sunday Epse Achidi.
Viewers glued to the CRTV network on April 15 to follow the live broadcast of Pope Leo XIV’s visit to the Unity Palace observed a signal interruption. This occurred during the sovereign pontiff’s speech. Frozen image, no sound for some time while the Pope continued his speech. Some viewers accuse CRTV of censoring the Pope’s speech. Given the inconvenience, the Director General of CRTV addressed viewers and listeners via a statement.
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Charles Ndongo offered “his sincere apologies to all viewers, listeners, and partners for the inconvenience caused.” In the continuation of the text, the head of CRTV explains the origin of the incident. “The malfunction originated from the unavailability of the fiber optic and instability of the internet network. The cause having been identified, the situation was restored, and services are now functioning normally,” reassures the Director General.
However, while the statement reassures the public, it triggers a reaction from the operator owning and managing the fiber optic, Cameroon Telecommunication (Camtel). In a statement reacting this morning, “CAMTEL informs the public that there was no unavailability of its infrastructures, nor any network failure” to justify the cause of the malfunction. According to the operator, technical data indicate that no fiber optic link break and no technical failure affected CAMTEL’s infrastructures and its internet network during the incident.
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Based on technical verifications carried out, the operator attributes the malfunction “to the technological choices made by CRTV, which opted not to use the CAMTEL network as the main source of broadcast” at Nsimalen airport, on the route to the Unity Palace as well as at the Unity Palace. Furthermore, CAMTEL assures that its network supervision center recorded no fiber optic network malfunction and carried out no repairs, which cannot last less than 10 minutes. Seeking to be convincing, CAMTEL argues that a fiber optic failure would have affected other users and television channels including PRC TV.
CAMTEL therefore deplores “the public and hasty accusation it was subjected to” and says it is available to public authorities and CRTV to conduct a joint technical audit to restore the truth of the facts. One wonders if the audit results will also be presented to the public.
