LTA Unveils Sweeping Telecom Reforms, Revokes Star Cell License After Six Years of Inactivity

In an interview with FrontPage Africa, LTA Board Chairman Clarence Massaquoi set out a reform agenda and confirmed that the Authority has revoked Star Cell’s licence. The company was licensed in March 2020 but never began operating, stayed away from meetings and did not meet its licence terms. The LTA says operators cannot hold spectrum indefinitely without serving the public.

The planned reforms would separate infrastructure providers from service providers, ending the single licence for both that has applied since the 2007 Telecommunications Act, with incentives for investors who serve rural areas that are not commercially attractive. They also include rules on tower ownership, network sharing and co-location, Liberia’s first satellite regulations, and an IMEI system to block stolen and counterfeit phones.

Massaquoi also pointed to new consumer protection regulations, under which Orange Liberia was fined four million Liberian dollars over a wrongly reassigned SIM card, and said the LTA was overseeing Starlink internet in 156 public schools, about 90 of them already installed.