Akim Oda, Oct 28, GNA - The Ghana Telecom has embarked on an expansion project to increase its Akim Oda telephone exchange system from the 1,000 to 3,000 lines.

With a new Alcatel machine being installed the project would reduce the existing ratio of one telephone line to 88 people to one-to-38 people.

The Eastern Regional Manager of Ghana Telecom, Nii Amaa Fleischer-Brock who conducted newsmen around the exchange on Tuesday, said the existing switch capacity of 1,000 is being expanded to 2,000 and would further be expanded to 5,000.

On the total cost of the project he said the switch cost 211,200 US dollars, the diesel engine generator cost 26,560 pounds while the customer access network cost 1.3 million US dollars.

Nii Fleischer-Brook said 33 pay phones have been installed and connected to the switch, adding that areas where there are no cables to connect customer access to the network have been allocated with five GSM pay phones.