By Etienne Mainimo Mengnjo
Cameroon’s state-owned telecom provider has denied responsibility for a brief interruption in the live broadcast of Pope Leo XIV’s address at the Unity Palace in Yaoundé.
In a statement released Thursday, CAMTEL rejected accusations by state broadcaster Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV that the outage stemmed from a failure in the national fiber optic network. The company said no disruption or unavailability of its infrastructure occurred during the event.
CAMTEL said data from its field teams and network monitoring center showed no fiber optic cuts or malfunctions in its internet services at the time of the broadcast.
The telecom operator instead attributed the interruption to decisions made by CRTV. It said the broadcaster mainly used its own satellite transmission system for coverage at Nsimalen International Airport and along the pope’s route, relying on fiber optics only as a backup.
At the Unity Palace, CRTV employed a TVU transmission system that depends on mobile internet data from various local operators rather than CAMTEL’s national fiber backbone, the company said. The on-screen “TVU” label during the live feed indicated the primary signal did not travel through CAMTEL’s infrastructure, according to the statement.
CAMTEL noted that a real failure in its fiber optic network would have disrupted service for multiple users at once. Other broadcasters, including PRC TV, continued transmitting without interruption, it said.
While expressing regret over what it called a “premature public accusation,” CAMTEL reaffirmed its ability to deliver reliable services, saying it had deployed exceptional technical measures to ensure seamless connectivity during the papal visit.
The company said it remains ready to work with authorities on a joint technical audit to determine the exact cause of the disruption and “restore the truth of the facts.”
