Africa’s largest telco, MTN has said that its Ghanaian subsidiary will launch 5G network by next year. This was made known by the CEO of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adavehoh during the MTN@25 Business Executive Breakfast held at the Pan-African telecommunications company’s headquarters in Ghana, recently.
“Innovation has been a key pillar of our growth,” Adavehoh said, adding that MTN is always trying to make sure we can be the first to launch the next technology, but not only to be the first but to actually bring that technology to the market and create value out of that technology, “so 2G, 3G, 4G, and now 5G hopefully next year.”
In order to achieve this goal, Adavehoh said that MTN Ghana is planning a $200-million overhaul of its network infrastructure in 2021. The investment will be substantially more than the initially planned $150-million as demand has risen due to the pandemic.
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In April, MTN Ghana announced its initial spending infrastructure investment amount as the telco’s subscriber base grew by 0.6-million to 25.0-million.
Continued demand for data and increased adoption of more digital payment services supported the active data subscribers’ growth of 0.4-million to reach 11.2-million and MoMo users growth of 0.1-million to reach 10.7-million.
As part of this $200-million upgrade, the operator expects to deploy 4G at all base stations in Accra, the country’s capital, and all of its nationwide sites by the end of 2022.
According to Nperf, a telecom mapping site that shows the different scales of 2G to 5G adoption and prevalence across a country, Ghana has yet to introduce any 5G services.
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If MTN manages to launch 5G before other major telcos in the country like Airtel, Vodafone and Glo, it will be the first operator to introduce the technology in the region.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry