• ARCEP says Airtel still delivers the worst service quality in Chad.

• Users face frequent outages despite the operator’s CFA50 bn ($89.5m) plan.

• Government demands visible improvements before year-end.

Airtel Chad continues to provide the poorest service quality in the country, despite promises of improvement, the telecom regulator said on September 29.

Haliki Mahamat Choua, director general of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Postal Services (ARCEP), told an Airtel delegation received by Telecommunications Minister Boukar Michel that repeated visits by senior company executives have brought no change in service quality or equipment upgrades. Users continue to face frequent disruptions and, in some cases, complete loss of network, both in the capital and rural areas.

This comes only days after Airtel presented a CFA50 billion ($89.46 million) investment plan to the regulator. Running through June 2026, the program includes strengthening microwave links, deploying new towers to expand coverage, developing fiber optics, and replacing the Ericsson core network with Huawei equipment.

During the meeting, Minister Michel stressed that the operator’s investment pledges must not remain empty promises. He said customers must feel improvements before the end of the year and called on Airtel to resolve the energy issue, one of the sector’s main challenges. He instructed the company to adopt hybrid energy sources—thermal and solar—to ensure proper functioning of transmission sites and better network coverage.

Airtel competes with Moov Africa, a subsidiary of Maroc Telecom, in Chad’s telecom market. As of June 2025, Moov Africa reported 7.26 million subscribers and held 58% market share. On that basis, Airtel’s customer base is estimated at about 5.26 million.