Koforidua, Aug. 21, GNA - Vodafone-Ghana has increased existing network coverage by 30 percent and expect to increase that by 100 percent before the end of the year. The company has replaced most of the equipment at its old cell sites with sophisticated radio equipment in order to optimize quality and enhance coverage.

A statement said the company had embarked on a vigorous cell site development programme that had brought its coverage to several communities which hitherto were not receiving its signals. "We have grown our customer base by over 35 percent since launching in April."

The statement said it costs less to call other networks from Vodafone than calling within networks, adding that it makes it unnecessary to switch "your Vodafone chip even when you are calling other networks".

"We created over 7,000 direct and indirect jobs in sales and distribution throughout the country".

The statement said the company had made great improvement in its services, increased roaming traffic and added new voice and data destinations.

The statement said the evolution of Ghana Telecom to Vodafone was expected to involve a process of transformation that would result in the re-structuring of the business in line with best practices. "Currently, Vodafone Ghana has 1,000 more staff than all the other mobile telephone companies combined (MTN, TICO, ZAIN and KASAPA)". The release said while Vodafone Ghana had about 17 percent of the market, the rest combined were covering 83 percent. The statement said the restructuring exercise underway would streamline the business and provide it with the agility and strength to be able to compete for the benefit of its customers and shareholders.