Sonatel fined XAF 14 bln for customer service violations

(Telecompaper) Senegal operator Sonatel has been fined XAF 13.959 billion by regulator ARTP for failure to meet customer service requirements. The fine is equal to 3 percent of the company's annual revenue in 2015. The violations concern regulations passed in 2014 requiring free calls to the operator's customer service line and continuous availability of the service, with no form of automatic filtering of calls. In addition the ARTP said its checks have found a large number of radio relay links