Accra, Ghana//-Telecom companies are quickly expanding fibre coverage to homes, offices, and pubs; among others throughout the 16 regions of Ghana to enable Ghanaians to have access to telecommunications services.
Telecommunications, in short telecom, is the exchange of information over significant distances by electronic means and refers to all types of voice, data and video transmission, according to techtarget.com.
It includes a wide range of information-transmitting technologies and communications infrastructures, such as wired phones; mobile devices, such as cellphones; microwave communications; fiber optics; satellites; radio and television broadcasting; the internet; and telegraphs.
According to the National Communications Authority (NCA), more than 22.7 million Ghanaians browsed the internet via their mobile phones in the month of April 2021.
In that same month, more than 4.2 million people got their internet through 4G data service providers namely, MTN Ghana, Surfline Communications Limited (Surfline), Vodafone Ghana, Telesol Ghana Limited (Telesol), Busy Internet Ghana Limited (Busy), and Broadband Home.
However, the spread of fibre in Ghana like other parts of Africa is not without hiccups. Records from the Ghana Chamber of Telecoms indicated that, in 2019 alone, telecom operators in the country recorded over 2,000 fibre cuts across the country, costing telcos hundreds of millions of dollars to fix and or replace these cuts.
So, on the average, telcos experience 300 fibre cut every month. MTN Ghana which is the telecom market leader reported some 382 fibre cuts between January and March 2019.
The telecom giant spent over $39million to repair the damages caused by road constructors, among others.
MTN, Vodafone and Glo have their fibre optic back bones, while AirtelTigo uses privately owned fibre owned by MainOne.
The culprits of fibre cuts
A number of these cuts have been traced to road construction, excavation by utility companies particularly Water Company Limited (GWCL) and Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), outdoor sign companies, theft and the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) approved activities.
Fibre cables are cables containing one or more optical fibres that are used to carry light.
The optical fibre elements are typically individually coated with plastic layers and contained in a protective tube suitable for the environment where the cable will be deployed.
Different types of cable are used for different applications, for example long distance telecom, or providing a high-speed data connection between different parts of a building.
Thousands of channels can be multiplexed together over one strand of fibre. The fibre optic network has formed a very important part of the transmission network of every modern telecommunication service provider.
Impacts of fibre optic cable cuts
Fibre optic cable damage repair and replacement costs
Industry experts noted that telecom service providers are losing huge revenue through high cost of fibre cable repairs, frequent replacement of repair tool kits and high cost of fibre optic cable replacement.
For instance, the telecommunications industry in Ghana lost a whopping 4.5 million cedis to the repairs of fibre cuts in 2018 alone, the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications said.
According to the chamber, the menace of fibre cuts is one that is taking a toll not just on the cost of production of the telecommunications companies but also affects the quality of service they provide.
Poor quality of service
Touching on the effects on the network, they mentioned the diminution in the quality of voice and data services being rendered to subscribers (customers), outright network outage in area/town/Districts/regions and slow pace of network expansion.
Also low browsing/download speed, high drop call rate, low call setup success rate/congestion, and voice quality degradation ( Clipping Voice) are the other key impacts or effects of fibre cuts on subscribers.
They also have a ripple effect on the business community which needs internet connectivity to transact their businesses.
Additionally, the Chief Executive Officer of the chamber, Kenneth Ashigbey speaking on Accra based 3FM indicated that the fibre cuts have dire consequences on national security as well as the output of businesses, particularly those whose progress run largely on the wheels of telecommunications.
Customer loss
It is a fact that the telecommunications industry is highly competitive, and, in a market of ostensibly endless promotions to switch providers, customer loyalty cannot be guaranteed.
So if a competitor’s appealing new customer promotions don’t persuade customers to jump ship, unreliable or slow service due to fibre cuts will certainly do.
As revealed by Harvard Business Review, it is five to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. So customer retention should be among telecom companies’ top priorities at this critical time of the COVID-19 crisis.
Poor public image
Fibre cuts can also lead to a bad image. Multiple research studies confirmed that image has an effect on customer acquisition and retention.
Generally, customer service experts asserted that the better perceived a company is, the easier it is to attract and keep customers.
The inverse is also true: The worse a company’s image, the harder it is to get new business and retain existing customers.
Therefore customers who lose service because of fibre cuts often air their complaints online, social media platforms, and sometimes mainstream media houses are quick to publish the story.
Negative sentiment builds up over time can ultimately affect a telecom company’s bottom line especially in a country where customers hate telecom glitches.
Penalties and fees
According to Deloitte, 91 percent of people willingly accept a company’s legal terms and conditions without reading them. But, just because people don’t read the fine print doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from it.
Telecom companies are required by law to compensate customers when they have outages. The more outages they have the more credits they owe customers. Sometimes the telecom companies are slapped with hefty financial penalties depending on the nature of the glitch.
What has been done?
To enhance speed and penetration of the internet, an extensive national fibre and microwave network had been completed by MTN Ghana, leading to the deployment of 400km of fibre some years ago.
While metro fibre upgrades to increase access network capacity in metropolitan areas was pursued religiously.
“We have had a lot of engagements. Just last week we were in Kumasi to do the regional engagement in Ashanti region where we brought together the road agencies who also contribute to the cuts, other utility agencies like the Ghana Water Company, Power Distribution Services, Lands Commission and everybody that contributes to this in one way or the other so that we can work on collaborations a lot more,” he said.
Mr Ashigbey also added that the Chamber of Telecommunications is sensitising various people including private developers in an attempt to address the fibre menace in the country.
Fiber cuts cut people in communities and cities off the telecommunications super highway depriving them of vital services.
This was why following an inter ministerial meeting, including the National Security, government enhanced cooperation among stakeholders for the implementation of the Right of way policy in the previous regime.
Telcos have also been urged to report all cases of fiber cuts to the nearest police station. The fibre does not contain copper, as the criminals think. Copper cable technology is not popular now.
Bottom line
Telecom service providers and the government should continue to intensify the fight against fiber cuts to eliminate or reduce the incidents of fibre cuts in the country.
The President of Journalists for Business Advocacy (JBA), Suleiman Mustapha also urged telcos operating in the country to invest in technologies that allow for minimal interference to enable them provide nonstop telecom services to their numerous customers.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
