L’arrivée de Starlink, leur stratégie : Brelotte Bâ, le DG de Sonatel Orange se prononce
Sonatel has a new CEO. Since last July, Brelotte Bâ has been at the helm of this flagship of the Senegalese economy. This Thursday, he officially met with journalists during a press conference. The group's current situation and future prospects were the focus of discussions. The new head of Sonatel also commented on the arrival of Starlink in Senegal.
Compliance with regulations
And on this issue, Brelotte Bâ wanted to be clear regarding the regulatory aspect: "As the head of an operator, what we can say is that the telecommunications code provides that there can be several players, each with their own technology. The same code also specifies the operating procedures for each of these operators. Therefore, what is needed is to ensure that this code and these rules are applied rigorously to all stakeholders,” he explained.
Today, what does Sonatel plan to do in response to Elon Musk's company's arrival in Senegal? Is it already deploying a strategy to counter this? Brelotte Bâ explains that her company has been implementing its broadband deployment strategy for years. Fiber optic cable has been deployed since 2017 with an investment of over 120 billion CFA francs. Today, nearly one million fiber optic connections have been installed. The goal for the next three years is to add another million connections to enable 1.5 million households in urban areas to access fiber optic internet by 2028.
Sonatel's hedging strategy
“It also involves a number of anticipations. We recently communicated about 2Africa, the submarine cable which brings 10 times more capacity with fiber. It is a major transformation. And these are projects that last a long time. This project started in 2020. And it was in December 2025 that it was put into service,” explains Mr. Bâ.
Moreover, in 2026, a new submarine cable, provisionally named Viafrica, will be launched for commissioning in 2030, he says. "So you can see that in these areas, we cannot react simply because there is an actor, etc. It is more about anticipation and obviously acceleration," he indicates.
"Not because there's an actor coming..."
Brelotte Bâ emphasizes that his company, which already covers 40% of the population with 5G, has a plan to continue a significant rollout of this technology in Senegal. Furthermore, Sonatel offers satellite services, allowing it to diversify its technology offerings.
"So it's really not about reacting because there's a new player coming in, but rather about continuing to deploy our strategy, accelerating and also listening to customers about the quality of services," he assures.
Flow rates that have tripled
In terms of cost, are Starlink's offers more affordable than Orange's? The CEO of Sonatel points out that his company's cheapest fiber optic offer is 14,900 FCFA, with service fees around 10,000 FCFA. "At 14,900 FCFA, we consider these to be affordable fiber optic offers," he says.
Today, the Director General of Sonatel and his team want to go further by implementing gradual improvements. "Recently, we announced that data speeds have tripled. This is because we have submarine cables whose capacity has increased tenfold. And this is just the beginning, because these speeds will continue to increase," he promises.
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