Business News of Monday, 21 May 2018
Source: citibusinessnews.com
2018-05-21
Acting Director General of the NCA, Joe Anokye
It has emerged that telecoms company, Glo, covers only a third of the total number of districts it is to cover in terms of its 3G coverage obligations.
This is the conclusion of a first quarter Quality of Service Monitoring conducted by the National Communications Authority (NCA).
The company is therefore expected to improve upon its operations in order to satisfy consumers and meet regulatory standards.
The survey, covered 120 district capitals for five (5) regions, namely, Ashanti, Eastern, Greater Accra, Northern and Western Regions.
It looked at indicators comprising coverage obligations, voice quality and data quality as stated in the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) licence conditions and with specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
The survey revealed that Glo currently serves 40 out of the 120 districts expected to cover.
It is followed by AirtelTigo and Vodafone which cover 112 and 117 districts respectively.
MTN however covered all the 120 districts.
It is important to note that all MNOs surveyed are 3G Licence Holders; and are required to provide service in all 216 District Capitals.
Responding to the issues, Glo assured of working to improve coverage especially in new developing areas. It also seeks to address its site outage challenge by focusing on improving site availability.
Meanwhile, AirtelTigo is expected to address some issues with Call Set Up time in Greater Accra region while MTN needs to improve on its Voice Quality, especially in highly populated areas.
In addition, the regulator wants Vodafone to address the issues with data speed in some parts of Eastern Region.
But Glo has been cited as having good data speed where they have 3G coverage.
On challenges facing the industry, Airtel Tigo and MTN mentioned the impact of fibre cuts which they want addressed.