Interruption of Pope’s live broadcast: CAMTEL fires back at CRTV, denies responsibility.

The State-run institution made the clarification yesterday, after it was summarily accused by Cameroon Radio Television, CRTV, of being at the origin of the glitch.

Without explicitly mentioning CAMTEL, the General Manager of CRTV, Charles Ndongo, had in a statement, Wednesday, cited the unavailability of fibre optic, as being the cause of the hitches.

Ndongo had said: “The malfunction was caused by the unavailability of the fibre-optic connection and instability in the internet network. Now that the cause has been identified, the situation has been resolved and services are now operating normally”.

In a sharp response to the allegations, CAMTEL, which is the lone provider of fibre optic in the country, dismissed the accusation, before setting the records straight.

In the rebuttal, CAMTEL General Manager, Judith Yah Sunday epse Achidi, stated categorical that “there was no unavailability of its infrastructure or any failure in its network”. 

The company explained that the technical data provided by the teams deployed on the field, in conjunction with the administrations and organisations involved in preparing for the historic event hosted by Cameroon, indicates that no break in the fiber optic link and no technical failure affected CAMTEL’s infrastructure and its internet network, during the incident.

CAMTEL disclosed that technical checks carried out have determined that the interruption stemmed from the technological choices, made by CRTV, which it said, opted not to use the CAMTEL network as its primary broadcast source.

CAMTEL revealed that: “At Nsimalen Airport and on the route to Unity Palace, CRTV broadcast via its own satellite broadcasting system (FLY AWAY), leaving fiber optics as a possible backup solution; at Unity Palace, the broadcast relied on a TVU system, a device using mobile internet data, from other local operators, as evidenced by the “TVU” displayed on screen during the live broadcast. The main broadcast signal was therefore not transmitted via fiber optics”.

The statement was blunt that: “CAMTEL’s Network Supervision Centre, detected no malfunction in the fiber optic network. Consequently, no repairs were carried out on the fiber optic network, as such repairs could not currently be completed in less than 10 minutes”.

It added that: “Moreover, such an incident, if it originated from fiber optics, would have also affected the signal of other users and television channels, not just CRTV. Thus, other fiber optic users, such as PRC TV, continued broadcasting without interruption”. 

“While deploring the public and hasty accusation to which it has been indirectly subjected, without any prior contradictory technical investigation and in an era of technological development, where any incident in a telecommunications network leaves detectable and auditable traces, CAMTEL reassures the public and all users of its infrastructure of its ability to provide the expected quality service and reiterates that exceptional measures and massive resources have been deployed to increase service delivery at all sites affected by the Papal visit to Cameroon,” CAMTEL continued, before announcing that the corporation remains fully available to public authorities and CRTV, to conduct a joint technical audit to establish the truth.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3763 of Friday April 17, 2026