The CEO of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevor has called on government to grant approval for infrastructure (particularly fibre) sharing to enable telcos and internet service providers (ISPs) in the country expand connectivity faster and wider in a more cost effective manner.
He made the call at this years’ MTN Media Forum, which is an annual event where MTN Ghana practically reports to the media on it activities and performance in the previous year and plans for the year ahead. It is also a forum for journalists to ask all the hard questions and get very frank and open answers from the CEO and all his top executives.
Selorm Adadevoh said MTN is currently deploying appropriate technology to expand coverage on the back of their existing infrastructure, while government has also directed them to do national roaming with their competitors all in the spirit of expanding connectivity for all.
Indeed, there is also a tower co-location policy in place, which compels all telcos and ISPs to share towers and cell sites managed by independent tower companies.
But the MTN Boss noted that the industry is at a stage where they need approval from the regulator to also do fibre sharing because that is a more cost-effective way of fiberizing the whole country and providing high quality of service across board.
He explained that improved quality of service within the context of digital transformation, will depend mainly on fibre, but it will cost too much for each individual player to do their own fiberization, and so there is a need to go beyond just tower sharing to fibre sharing, which requires regulatory approval.
National Roaming
Techfocus24 recently reported that the telcos, particularly MTN and Vodafone have applied for approval to do spectrum sharing with respect to the ongoing national roaming between them. The telcos said the national roaming pilot was successful, but to make it more effective and beneficial to Ghanaians, they need the clearance for spectrum sharing, but the government is yet to give them approval for that.
Selorm Adadevoh, in his presentation, noted that even though the current national roaming arrangement was a regulatory directive, MTN was already going to engage its competitors on more than just national roaming, but also spectrum and fibre sharing to build an infrastructure backbone to serve as the wheels on which Ghana’s digital transformation will ride smoothly.
Agenda 2025
He said MTN’s Agenda 2025 strategy has Network as a Service (NaaS) as one of the five main legs, and it was in rolling out that strategy that MTN was committed to infrastructure sharing even without a regulatory directive.
“As part of our Agenda 2025 strategy we acknowledge that digitalizing MTN alone without carrying the entire ecosystem along will not yield the desired dividends for the country. So, beyond collaborating at the critical backend infrastructure level, we are also investing in digitalizing the front end by creating avenues for startups to incubate and accelerate by connecting to the various platforms of MTN,” he said.
One key investment in that direction is the $25 million yet to be built Ghana ICT Hub, which is designed to house hundreds of startups and create jobs for thousands of Ghanaian youth within the digital space. The Ghana ICT Hub is just one of three legs of the Accra Innovation City which is being planned for the near future.
The four other legs of MTN’s Agenda 2025 strategy are digital (Ayoba), mobile finance (MoMo), Enterprise (MTN Business) and Chenosis (API marketplace), all of which are also designed to drive the entire ecosystem on the path of growth through digital transformation.
Investment
Selorm Adadevoh stated that, in rolling out all those strategies, MTN is well on its way to exceed the $1 billion investment it earmarked for Ghana by 2025, saying that they have already crossed the $600 million mark and so they are most likely get to about $1.2 billion by close of the period.
He said MTN has so far spent over GHS93 million on corporate social investment alone, and this year the focus will be on digital and ICT projects to further bridge the digital gap and empower more Ghanaians to participate in the digital world.
The MTN boss said one of the priorities of the company, as enshrined in its Agenda 2025 strategy, is to put control in the hands of the customer by empowering them with tools and the necessary basic digital skills to fully participate in the digital space and in a safe and secure manner.
He assured Ghanaians that MTN will continue to invest in Ghana in spite of the economic challenges the country is currently facing and its adverse impact on businesses.
Friendly competition????
Meanwhile, at the forum, there was a friendly competition between four journalists’ groups whose reps made presentations on selected industry topics.
The four groups were Network of Communication Reporters (NCR), Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ), Journalists for Business Advocacy (JBA) and the Private Newspapers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG).
NCR, which made a presentation on SIM Card Registration emerged winners of the day.
