The Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Posts, abbreviated as "ARTP", is created, with the President of the Republic, as an independent administrative authority, responsible for regulating the telecommunications and postal sectors. The ARTP has legal personality and financial autonomy and management.
Law No. 2011-01 of 24 February 2011 on the Telecommunications Code assigns ARTP the following tasks, powers and prerogatives:
Missions:
- General mission (application of regulations, advice, opinions and proposals of legislative and regulatory texts to the President of the Republic and the Government);
- Ensure compliance with the rules of fair and healthy competition;
- Ensure the follow-up of the specifications of the operators;
- Ensure the respect of an equitable interconnection between the operators;
- Manage and control scarce resources (frequencies and numbers);
- Set up regulatory tools (approval of unbundling technical and tariff offers, define the procedures for applying carrier selection, ensure the definition and implementation of the conditions and modalities of number portability);
- Supervise the rates of the powerful operators;
- Coordinate the implementation of the service development / universal access policy;
- Grant authorizations and enforce the regulation, registration and management of domain names and put in place an appropriate management mechanism;
- Participate in the representation of Senegal at meetings organized by international organizations when issues related to its missions are examined.
Attributions:
- Advisory powers: the ARTP is consulted by the sectoral ministries on all draft legislative and regulatory texts; to do this, the ARTP consults, in turn, the actors in the regulated sectors;
- Informative assignments: The ARTP publishes an official bulletin, available on its website.
Prerogatives:
- Settling disputes between operators in the regulated sectors, on the one hand, and between operators and consumers, on the other hand;
- Sanction the operators' failings with regard to the laws and regulations, their concession agreements and specifications;
- Investigate and observe violations of the Telecommunication Code and the Postal Code;
- Require the modification of the unfair terms of operators' contracts;
- If necessary, financially constrain the operators.
