NCA denies telcos 4G license

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has told Citi Business News telecom operators in the country will not be allowed to take up the fourth generation (4G) technology any time soon.

Telcos in the country are currently running 3G and 3.5G. The 4G is much faster than the 3G making browsing and downloading content like songs and films onto your mobile phone and tablet much quicker among others.

Downloading speed on a 4G could run up to 10 times the speed of a 3G.

The acting Deputy Director General of NCA, Albert Enninful told Citi Business News none of the 6 existing telecom companies in the country will for now be allowed to have the 4G license for purposes of regulation compliance.

“One of the reasons why we have decided to give to new companies is to ensure that they use the frequencies for what they are used for. Technology is going in such a way that you can reform some of the frequencies to do other things.”

“If we give it to the mobile operators they might use the frequency to do other things and not work on the 4G as the way we wanted. As I said, even with the 3G they still have problems with it. We don’t want to add additional stuff to them to basically cripple the environment,” he added.

The authority has however issued licenses to 3 companies in the country to operate 4G broadband service (Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) in the 2500 – 2690 MHz band).

The companies Surf line Limited, Gold Key Properties Limited and G-Kwik net Limited were each issued the license at a cost of Six Million US Dollars.

Albert Enninful told Citi Business News that the companies will take off soon. He expressed his confidence in the licensed companies to deliver quality internet service to end users.