…to add to $60 billion investment in Africa

Ghana has started attracting the attention of the global telecommunications community as the low telecoms access rates and market potentials of the country are increasingly becoming clear.

The country has one of the highest penetration figures as far as internet is concerned recording an urban penetration figure of 5% on a continent that still has a general penetration figure of 1%

As for mobile telephony, the country claims to have about 65% penetration of mobile telephony, but a critical view will show that there are some users who are connected to at least two or more different networks, thus rendering the 65% penetration figure questionable.

In the midst of this, rural penetration is still very low and communication across the country still suffers a jolt in one way or another especially when network operators are yet to embrace the concept of co-location which would have reduced the cost of expansion across board.

Global investors are being urged to consider under virgin areas still in the Information and Communications Technology sector, where a lot more opportunities abound in Ghana.

The World Bank recently reported that $60 billion have so far been invested in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in Africa, citing this development in the sector as a signpost of what is possible in other sectors still virgin on the continent.

However, in Ghana, situations are not helped at all by a regulatory body, the National Communications Authority (NCA) which is accused by end users of communications services, especially cell phone users of looking on clueless while cellular networks deliver poor quality of service, choosing rather to compete with one another in investing their earnings into noisy promotional activities that only go a long way to promise end users laudable services, which are poorly delivered.

In the midst of all these shortcomings, Ghana’s strides in the industry have been acknowledged and currently, Minister for Communications, Haruna Iddrissu chairs the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The country is also scheduled to host two major international ICT conferences this year to promote and enhance the development of internet and telephone usage in rural communities.

These are the ITU Workshop on Numbering Planning and Convergence of Numbering slated for April 28-30, and the Fifth Annual Connecting Rural Communities Forum scheduled for August 17-19, this year.

The workshop is being organised by the Ministry of Communications in collaboration with the ITU as part of the implementation of the Doha Action Plan adopted at the World Telecommunication Development Conference in 2006. The second conference which is the 5th Annual Connecting Rural Communities Africa Forum 2010 is being organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) in conjunction with the communications ministry and government of Ghana.

The first workshop will for instance, according to Dr Narku Quainor, look at how Ghana can formulate a deployment plan to be able to use other numbers of the convergence world, such as the IPV6 numbers.

“Numbers have always had an important role in telecommunications and the importance of numbering as a regulatory instrument has increased significantly with fair and transparent access to numbers being an essential part of ensuring a competitive telecommunications market,” Deputy Communications Minister, Gideon Quarcoo noted at the media launch of these two events.

According to him telecommunication numbering is a scarce resource that needs to be managed carefully.

"It is in this direction that the Ministry has included numbering as part of Ghana's Universal Access and Service policy, being implemented by the National Communications Authority", Mr. Quarcoo explained.

The deputy minister disclosed that the ITU would provide a comprehensive understanding of key issues surrounding numbering, particularly dealing with policy and regulatory framework, management of the numbering plan, business model and methods of billing, number portability and domain name systems. According to the Chief Executive Officer of the CTO, Ekow Spio Garbrah, ICT is a priority for the organization and would like to promote the deployment of ICT throughout the commonwealth.

“It is a great achievement if Ghana really has even above 45% penetration in mobile telephony, but equally significant is the other percentage that are not connected,” the CTO boss observed, adding that the CTO would like to examine the policies put in place by governments concerning licensing, frequency allocation and spectrums available to investors so that these services can get close to the rural folks.

“The NCA has the responsibility to ensure universal access so that the disadvantaged, the poor and rural people can also be connected,” he reiterated. He noted that the role of GIFTEL to collect a percentage from service providers to extend connectivity to the disadvantaged population is very important since the main consideration by investors of Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) prevents them from going to rural areas.

“New technology is now available to allow for fewer base stations to cover many people,” Mr. Spio Garbrah stated.

He said the workshop would be looking at issues such as low incomes in rural communities as against the capital intensive nature of telecoms investment and how rural patronage could pay for services.

This, he believes can be tackled through Public Private People’s Partnerships (PPPP) and “for us at CTO, the key to rural telephony is partnership,” the CEO stated, drawing the analogy from the US, where there are as many as 500 rural telephony services in which subscribers are co-owners.

Mr. Garbrah expressed the belief that for progress to be made in that direction, business models need to be changed for some parts of the world.

Source: Financial Intelligence (www.fighana.com) (Justice Lee Adoboe)