In Africa, Ghana is one of the countries with a high e-government maturity index. Indeed, since 2017, the authorities have invested in it accordingly, as in digital transformation in general. Particular emphasis is now placed on broadband access, the basis of everything.
The Republic of Ghana has decided not to auction 5G frequencies as is generally done in international telecom standards. In order to ensure that this technology and 4G are fully available nationwide, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful (photo), the Minister of Communication and Digitization, revealed that the government has agreed to create a company for this purpose. neutral shared infrastructure. This will make the appropriate telecom networks available to telecom operators.
Speaking on the subject, Wednesday, August 23, in Accra ˗ on the sidelines of the 12 edition of the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) hosted from 22-24 August 2023 by MainOne ˗ Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said “ We will also work with network operators and private investors to build a 4G and 5G network, so we are not going to auction 5G, we are giving it to these networks so that all operators can use it. use and extend it to about 80% of the population ”.
In several African countries where the 5G license has been awarded to telecom operators, there has always been a delay in the effective deployment of the network throughout the national territory. The service has always been mainly concentrated in a part of the capital and a few main secondary towns, thus depriving potential consumers of access to high quality connectivity.
This is still the case for 4G. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Global Connectivity Report 2022, 4G coverage in Africa only reaches nearly 45% of the population. However, the technology has been introduced to the continent’s telecom market since 2013 and its deployment accelerated in 2015.
Ghana, which has made digital transformation a major focus of its development policy (digitalization of public services, dematerialization of payments, automation of procedures, etc.) no longer wants such a situation to happen again. The government, aware that quality broadband is crucial for access to various digitized services, is determined to guarantee its quality and availability everywhere.