Leading local managed service provider Camusat on how Senegal is supporting telecoms growth

TowerXchange caught up with Sebastien Martin, COO Africa of Camusat, to ask about their experiences in Senegal. Having worked in the country for 12 years and dealt with some of the major players in the Senegalese market, they have experienced many of the ups and downs of the Senegalese market over the last decade. As an established democracy with fewer natural resources than their neighbours to rely on for growth, Senegal has not found economic turnaround easy but has created a strong base in technology from which to develop. With rumours of tower outsourcing opportunities in the pipeline, gaining a better understanding of the Senegalese market is critical for anyone looking for growth in West Africa.

TowerXchange: How long has Camusat been in Senegal and what’s your footprint in the country?

Camusat has been operating in Senegal since 2003. In the beginning the company was called Senecam (a hybrid of the words ‘Senegal’ and ‘Camusat’) but we changed the name to simply ‘Camusat’ last year as we want a corporate name everywhere we operate. But in Senegal realistically everyone still knows us as Senecam.

Our primary customer in the country is Sonatel/Orange, we do build to suit solutions for Sonatel/Orange and also provide solar solutions for them. We also have Alcatel as a customer in Senegal and we do radio installation and commissioning for them throughout the country. It’s a long term partnership where we have technicians training on their equipment and we install and commission active equipment for them. We did work with Tigo on their network from 2005 to 2007 but after that they stopped the programme and didn’t invest as heavily in their towers. During the three years we worked for them our main role was reinforcement of their existing towers.

TowerXchange: As one of the longest-established democracies in Africa, how have you found the political climate in the country? Do you feel there’s political will to support telecoms infrastructure growth?

The leading operator in Senegal is Sonatel, which was the state-owned operator for many years. Now the state still controls 23% of equity so naturally the government is very involved in the company.

In terms of development, the government is very open to technology and new ideas; they were one of the first countries which used a submarine cable for international connectivity (Editor’s note: Senegal has used submarine cables since 1976). There are three operators in Senegal so I would say it’s a fair market for business in a country with fewer than 20 million people. So yes, the government is fair with telecoms. We’ve never really experienced any issues with red tape or corruption in the country and we don’t hear about things like this either. It’s a good place to do business.

TowerXchange: Although the Senegalese economy stagnated a bit over the last ten years, they are targeting strong growth (7%) in 2015 - do you feel this is realistic? What measures do you see being taken to support this?

Last year Senegal had an election and everyone was pretty happy with the outcome.

I wasn’t aware of government targets on growth, but they have good potential in terms of development so if there’s political stability they’ll be able to grow very fast. If you compare Senegal to other countries in the region they’re unfortunately not so rich in natural resources like Mali with gold or bauxite in Guinea, they don’t have these opportunities for growth. What they do have are good technology people with good knowledge. This makes a difference to telecoms and is why Sonatel is doing very well at the moment. They employ good people and are able to manage four countries from a base in Senegal.

TowerXchange: With two tier one operators in the country and Expresso Mobile aiming for growth, do you feel Senegal will be able to support an independent tower industry?

Yes I think there is opportunity for the tower industry in Senegal.

The fact is that Sonatel is the biggest operator and controls more than 60% of the telecoms revenue in Senegal so everything is in their hands. A towerco would be able to do business in Senegal only if Sonatel will open their network to the towerco as the other MNOs don’t have as many attractive sites. The only way a towerco can come into the Senegalese market is through Sonatel. With Sonatel towers there’s a lot of opportunity for co-location for the two existing operators and maybe even a fourth operator if they were to enter the market later.

TowerXchange: How has the recent withdrawal of 4G service trials been received and do you think a resolution which enables nationwide 4G rollout will be reached soon?

Sonatel and Tigo have recently done a trial of 4G services and will definitely roll out 4G. They are expecting to get the licence to roll out from the authorities. As we can see Tigo have given management of this to Ericsson and they’ll ask Ericsson to install 4G technology soon for sure. Sonatel is working on it and will definitely deploy 4G in the country. For a fourth operator to come at the moment it will be quite difficult because of the existing operations of the main two operators who are installed everywhere. I think we will see the 4G rollout led by the existing big operators in the country.

TowerXchange: What is the requirement for build to suit in Senegal?

I think there is a limited opportunity for new build. Sonatel have almost 2,000 sites in the country which is quite an extensive network, but if whoever does build to suit focuses only on urban sites maybe there’ll be a need for around 200 new build to suit sites over the next four years.

But the big question is around the very rural sites which aren’t generally interesting for towercos but the operators have a need for a presence there. Operators are looking for a way to go into rural areas in a low cost way. Last year in Africa we saw many companies using satellites to connect rural sites – before satellite connection was more expensive but now costs have come down and it is becoming more viable for rural sites.