Ghana to establish neutral shared infrastructure for 5G

Ghana does not plan to auction 5G spectrum but will rather establish a "neutral shared infrastructure company" to deliver nationwide 4G and 5G services.

Ghana's minister of communications and digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, made the announcement at the twelfth edition of the African Peering and Interconnection forum in Accra this week. She said the ministry had been granted approval to set up the neutral shared infrastructure.

"We'll be working with network operators and private investors to set up a 4G and 5G network as well, so we are not going to be auctioning 5G, we are giving it to this networks [stet] so that all operators can use it and extend it to about 80% of the population," said the minister, according to local publication GhanaWeb.

The conference producers confirmed the minister had announced that nationwide 4G and 5G services would be provided by a consortium of network operators and private investors.

Owusu-Ekuful told the media the strategy will help service providers extend their services to rural areas and support the country's digital transformation agenda. She also said the government had given approval for the landing of two new submarine cables to improve affordable Internet access.

Ghana lags in 5G revolution

Around 14 countries in Africa have already rolled out 5G services, but Ghana is not one of them. Launches in Uganda and The Gambia are among the most recent.

MTN Ghana had plans to launch 5G services in 2022, but that has not come to fruition. MTN is by far the biggest mobile operator in Ghana with almost 67.5% market share at the end of June 2023, according to statistics from market research company Omdia.

Vodafone Ghana is in second place with 18.5% market share followed by AirtelTigo, which holds 13% of the market. Glo Mobile is the smallest operator with less than 1% market share.

Ghana's Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation believes neutral shared infrastructure for 4G and 5G will support the country's digital transformation agenda. (Source: ASphotofamily on Freepik)

In February 2023, MTN pledged to invest $1 billion in Ghana over the next five years. Group CEO Ralph Mupita said at the time that the telco intended to invest the amount in 5G technology, which would spur faster growth across sectors.

The announcement came after the country's government exempted the telco's Ghanaian unit from a tax claims worth about $773 million.

Still room for 4G growth

Ghana still has a lot of space for 4G growth with only about 15% of mobile users taking advantage of the technology in mid-2023. In comparison, 3G users make up 71% of all mobile users and almost 14% are still using 2G, according to Omdia.

MTN Ghana is the country's leading 4G operator with about 5.7 million active 4G subscriptions at the end of June 2023, out of its 27.8 million total mobile users. Vodafone Ghana only had around 341,600 4G subscriptions out of its 7.3 million mobile base. AirtelTigo and Glo Mobile didn't have any 4G users.

In July 2023, Ghana's National Communications Authority (NCA) introduced technology neutrality to try to tackle non-significant market power concerns in the telco industry. The decision gave Vodafone and Airtel Tigo the authorization to re-farm their spectrum assignment in the 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2100MHz bands to provide 4G services.

The technology neutrality also aimed to help operators who do not currently have 4G services to deploy it within their current spectrum assignment to help level the playing field and enhance competitiveness.

Ghana's regulator has been cracking down on unregistered SIM cards in the country. In June 2023, about 9 million SIM cards were disconnected until users correctly completed a mandatory SIM registration process.

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*Top image is of Ghana's Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful. (Source: Ghana Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation website.)

— Paula Gilbert, Editor, Connecting Africa