Information & Communication Technology Arena

Lagos. Nigeria’s Second National Operator, Globacom, is putting final touches to the much-anticipated rollout of its mobile business in Ghana in the wake of government’s promise to clear impediments that have bogged down its planned entry into the West Africa’s nation’s telecoms market.

People close to developments in Globacom say that the SNO is now beaming its radar on Ghana to meet the government new challenge but there are doubts that the go-live will happen this year by Glo Mobile Ghana, which will be the sixth mobile operator in the country’s telecoms market.

Ghana will also be a new battleground as the Globacom mobile business will be making local rivals including MTN and Zain (now Airtel), which have mobile telecoms operations in the country.

“Globacom is not likely to roll out commercial service in Ghana this year”, an anonymous source conversant with the situation told Technology Times but noted that the company is taking serious the promise by authorities in Ghana that they have cleared hurdles in the way of the proposed go-live of Glo mobile Ghana.

The Nigerian SNO had threatened to pull out of Ghana on ground of alleged sabotage of its infrastructure, frequency interference and vandalisation of its advertising billboards, among others.

According to insiders in the SNO’s office in Nigeria, Globacom is putting finishing touches to the business that will be the sixth mobile business in Ghana under its expansion plans into the West African telecoms market as part of its overall vision of becoming a major African telecoms powerhouse.

President of Ghana, John Atta Mills, recently directed the Ministries of Communications and Environment, Science and Technology to facilitate the launch of Glo mobile business into the country.

The Presidential order also cited the need to remove hurdles in the way of the Nigerian telecoms company including the issuance of environmental permits, said to have hindered the deployment of its infrastructure, according to media reports.

Minister for Communications, Haruna Iddrisu, was quoted by Ghana’s Daily Graphic as confirming this much when he said that “… the President’s desire is to see the launch of Glo to facilitate job creation and deepen competition in the telecommunications sector.”

Ghana’s Cabinet has adopted new guidelines and recommended that the implementation of the new guidelines must be fair to all players in the telecommunications industry, says the Minister.
“The challenge is for Glo to deploy its infrastructure and to launch its product on the Ghanaian market as the government has done its part”, he adds noting that the spectrum issues had been resolved by the National Communications Authority as Glo was now free to use 800 Megahertz spectrum as the sixth operator in the country.

He also says that the nation’s environmental agency indicates that Glo has been granted almost 600 cell site permits that should be enough to aid the company to launch its services “if it means business.”

In Ghana, MTN is market leader in subscriptions, with a market share of 49.66 per cent. This is followed by TiGo and Vodafone Mobile with 22.64 per and 15.10 per cent respectively. Zain has 9.36 per cent, while Kasapa has 1.38 per cent. Fixed Network operators hold the remaining subscriber percentages with Vodafone having the majority of 1.80 per cent while Zain has 0.05 per cent.