Business News of Wednesday, 29 November 2000

Source: by eric m.k osiakwan

Ghana's Teledensity Report

A recent report reveals that the concentration of telephone facilities in the country has increased considerably at this time of the year and a lot of factors have been responsible for this increase.

The report, which was read on the Business segment of GTV news, came across with Ghana Telecom increasing it subscriber lines to one hundred and eighty thousand (180,000) whiles Westel lines increased to fifty thousand (50,000).

The two together increased the number of local ground lines nationwide to two hundred and thirty thousand (230,000) for which more than half of them are concentrated in the Greater Accra Region and specifically in the capital city.

This was not the best development since there was an agreement for the two operators to develop their infrastructure to serve the other regions also during the period under review. The survey never made mention of the number of lines or infrastructure put in place by Capital Telecom who by their mandate are supposed to serve the undeserved areas.

The teledensity of the nation thus stands at 0.01. This indicates no increase as subsequent surveys also put the teledensity around this same range.

The report further revealed that the three mobile network operators have also made a lot of strides at increasing their subscriber base. Millicom Ghana Ltd. operators of MOBITEL had increased their lines to thirty thousand (30,000), Scancom Ghana Ltd. operators of SPACEFON have also increased their lines to fifty thousand (50,000) while Kludjeson International, operators of CELLTEL, have also increased their number to twenty thousand (20,000) over the period under review.

In all the number of mobile lines had increased to hundred (100,000) thousand lines. This puts the mobile teledensity at 0.005.The combined number of ground and mobile lines stand at three hundred and thirty thousand (330,000) lines. This puts the total teledensity at 0.02.