Ghana - Telecoms Infrastructure, Operators, Regulations - Statistics and Analyses

Synopsis

Ghana was one of the first countries in Africa to liberalise and deregulate its telecommunications sector. Following the privatisation of Ghana Telecom in 1996 there was very rapid growth in market competition across the mobile and internet sectors, with a number of new players being licensed to offer services. Ghana Telecom was acquired by the Vodafone Group in 2009 and rebranded as Vodafone Ghana. It is the principal fixed-line provider and also the third largest player in the mobile services sector, after MTN and the recently merged AirtelTigo. The second national operator, Westel, was also re-privatised, in 2007, ultimately becoming Airtel Ghana.

There are a number of submarine fibre cables landing in the country, which have significantly increased international bandwidth and led to a dramatic reduction in the cost of broadband access. These developments, combined with the roll out of national fibre backbone networks by a number of players, are continuing to revolutionise the country’s broadband market and pave the way for the convergence of technologies and services. This has been indicated by the regulator’s intention to replace 2G licences expiring in 2019 with universal access licences, enabling licensees to offer both fixed and mobile offers.

Key developments:

Accra Digital Centre is opened; Google builds out 1,200km of metro-net fibre as part of its Project Link program; Eastern Corridor project completed, work starts on Western Corridor; government planning launch of the Ghanasat 1 satellite in 2020; fifth international submarine fibre optic cable launched; Ghana Information Communication Technology Council to be set up to guide the ICT sector; continuing influence of fixed-mobile substitution; report update includes the regulator’s market data to September 2017, telcos’ operating data to Q4 2017, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Vodafone Ghana, Telkom Malaysia, Telenor, Bharti Airtel (Zain/Celtel, Westel), Capital Telecom, Globacom, Main One, VoltaCom, Phase3 Telecom, Suburban Telecom.

Table of Contents

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