Techfocus24 has learnt from very reliable sources that the National Communications Authority (NCA) has informed all telcos of a decision to fine each of them for the protracted poor quality of service over the last few months.
In August last year, the Minister of Communications announced that MTN Ghana and Telecel Ghana had been granted technology neutrality and extra spectrum to enable them to improve on quality of service. He then warned that if the fail to meet the quality of service standards, the NCA will be directed to apply sanctions.
Additionally, the minister of directed AT Ghana to migrate over three million customers to the Telecel network in a intended to ensure that AT Ghana customers continue to enjoy network service on Telecel after the shutdown of some AT cell sites due to its indebtedness to the leading tower company in Ghana, ATC Ghana.
Months after these critical interventions, quality of service across all three networks have gotten even much worse than they were before those two interventions, with complaints about both voice and data challenges awash on social media.
The main challenge with data is simply no network in some area and very poor in others, while on the voice side, there are delays in call connection, speech muffling during calls, sound going completely mute during a call and the usual “out of coverage area” and “cannot be reached” feedback even when the person you are calling is next to you.
As a result, the NCA recently issued a directive to the telcos to reduce call drop rate to one percent and SMS delivery to under 5 seconds.
Fibre cuts and coverage gaps
The telcos have noted that fibre cuts continues to be a major cause of poor quality of service, with MTN in particular recording scores of fibre cuts in some areas due to road construction.
Moreover, some citizens who host telecom towers on their properties have also decided to end their tower-hosting contracts with the telcos, creating a huge coverage gap.
There are some planned investments to fix these challenges, but all of those are yet to come on stream.
While consumers are yet to see any improvements in quality of service, Techfocus24 can confirm that the telcos have already been told that they will be fined for the grave quality of service breaches over the past few months.
Compensation for Consumers
What is however not clear is whether consumers stand to get any benefits in that sanction regime. Often what happens in the the NCA fines the telcos and keeps the money for its work, while the consumers who suffered the poor service get no compensation whatsoever.
At the instance of the Network of Communication Reporters some years back, the NCA changes the sanctions regime to include compensation for consumers rather than a direct fine, which does not benefit consumers in any way.
Bonded Investment
The other option would be to put the telcos under a bonded investment regime, where they are compelled to invest the equivalent of the fine in specific projects to improved quality of service, rather than taking the money from them and still asking them to find money to invest.
Elsewhere, in Cameroon, Techfocus24 learnt that telcos were put under bonded investment as a sanction for poor quality of service.
In Ghana, it is not a secret that apart from MTN Ghana, the two under telcos are not necessarily strong financially to pay fines and also find more money to invest and improve quality of service. Under those circumstance, a bonded investment regime may be a more forward-looking approach.
The 4G/5G Shared Network Route
The other solution could be to focus on riding on the 4G/5G shared network being built by Next Generation Infrastructure Company (NGIC) as a more affordable way of aiding telcos to improve quality of service.
The core issue today is infrastructure scale. Data demand has grown faster than the rollout of new sites and supporting transmission, so many existing cells remain congested even where spectrum is available. Technology neutrality helps operators refarm spectrum, but the real performance gains come when there are more modern sites closer to users, with adequate backhaul.
This is where NGIC plays a critical role. The shared 4G/5G infrastructure allows operators to expand capacity quickly and efficiently without each having to build separately. As NGIC’s rollout accelerates, operators will be able to offload traffic, improve coverage, and make more effective use of the additional spectrum that has been released.
In short, the policy framework is now in place. The focus must be on accelerating infrastructure deployment, which is the decisive factor in improving service quality.
