Ghana's 5G rollout timeline unknown

Ghana's Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, believes that deploying 5G services hinges on telecom operators purchasing the necessary capacity and providing it to their customers.

Her assertions come two months after the country launched its first 5G wholesale network.

However, she told TV3 Ghana that local telcos have yet to lease capacity from the wholesale network to offer commercial 5G services.

"It's a wholesale infrastructure. We built it, and it's now up to the telecom companies to buy capacity and deliver it to their subscribers," Owusu-Ekuful said when asked about the 5G network rollout status.

Ghana's 5G plans

The Ghanaian government announced the launch of 5G services in November 2024, citing that telcos MTN Ghana, Airtel Ghana and Telecel would roll out the services to their customers before the end of 2024 in the cities of Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi.  

This was after Ghana's government announced in August 2023 that it did not plan to auction 5G spectrum but would rather establish a "neutral shared infrastructure company" to deliver nationwide 4G and 5G services.

Ghana does not plan to auction 5G spectrum but will rather deliver nationwide 4G and 5G services via a neutral shared infrastructure company. (Source: Image by Allexxandar - www.freepik.com)

It announced that Next-Gen Infra Co (NGIC) would be given the exclusive right to offer 5G services in Ghana for a decade, though its license is valid for 15 years.

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However, since the launch in November, none of Ghana's primary mobile operators, including NGIC stakeholders Telecel Ghana, AT Ghana, and MTN Ghana, have utilized the NGIC network to introduce their own 5G services.

Ghana's 5G race lags

Telcos in Ghana have yet to roll out 5G services to subscribers, and it is unclear whether the incoming government will shed any light on its 5G services plans going forward.

Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama (who was also President between 2012 and 2017) won the presidential election last year after his rival, then Vice President and ruling party candidate Mahamudu Bawumia, conceded defeat in December 2024.

Even though Ghana's 5G rollout is lagging, according to statistics from market research company Omdia, around 7.6 million of MTN Ghana's 28.6 million subscribers were on 4G at the end of the third quarter of 2024.  

Meanwhile only 430,000 subscribers of Telecel Ghana's almost 6.6 million subscribers were on 4G in the same period.

The majority of AT Ghana's 5 million subscribers were still using 3G, while the majority of Glo Mobile's almost 350,000 mobile subscribers were also on 3G at the end of the third quarter of 2024.