Accra, November 30, 2017//-Ghana’s Minister of Communications, Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful has asked broadband and telecom companies to develop a broadband infrastructure code to enable them to co-share broadband infrastructure in the country.
According to her, if this infrastructure is co-shared it would lead to the reduction of the overhead cost of broadband firms and telcos, thereby leading to low cost of internet in Ghana.
Mrs Ekuful made the call at the opening of the maiden Broadband Ghana Forum in Accra today.
There are a lot of fibre optic cables deployed by some individual broadband companies , telcos and ISPs on the ground which are not being co-shared. It is therefore important for these players to sit together and discuss how to co-share the infrastructure, Mrs Ekuful added.
She said: “We have a lot of metro fibre around the large cities while major parts of this country are not covered. We can’t continue this way. It is very expensive to lay fibre, so if we sit down in a room to decide that okay there is enough fibre here. We all want to extend our service to another location”.
“Let us join our resources instead of everybody laying down fibre to extend services to say Nandom. Let’s decide that okay company A will do point A to point B. Company B will continue from point B to point C. Or an infrastructure company set up not to provide the services but to lay down the infrastructure, will lay down the fibre and everybody will lease capacity to do their work”.
Mrs Ekuful continued: “So, they will reduce their capital expenditure and they don’t need to invest so much in building their own fibre network but they can lease capacity from infrastructure companies to extend their services to the areas that they want to extend services to.
So, we believe that if we work together to develop an infrastructure sharing code and facilitate that and make it easier for them to also extend their service, they will be competition alright but they will be competing on the quality of services they provide and —-it gives consumers more choice to”.
“They can decide as to which network to use in their locality. We want to connect the entire country within the next two to three years. It is possible if we work with the network operators, broadband wireless operators and internet service providers to see how best we can do that. By sharing the cost of laying down the necessary infrastructure and pooling our resources together because at the end of the day if it works and every part of this country is connected all of them can expand their services to all parts of the country instead of the small geographical locations that they are limited to now”, the Minister stated.
In his welcome address, Elorm Gustav Tamakloe, Chief Executive Officer of Broadband Communications Chamber (BCC), an advocacy and lobbying group for the development and expansion of the broadband industry and organisers of the forum admitted that; “in todays’s world, broadband is a critical part of any national economic and social development agenda”.
This, he noted is because it drives economic growth, productivity and job creation.
“It is absolutely essential for Ghana’s economic future, long term productivity growth and global economic competitiveness. With broadband infrastructure, delivery of voice, video and data at ultra-high-speed yields numerous benefits including connectivity improvement, better health and education services and efficient government services”, Mr Tamakloe explained.
The one-day forum being organised by the BCC under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications which is themed as ‘Broadband: The Catalyst for Sustainable Socio-economic Development’ .
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