Ghana’s government has ordered its telecoms regulator to deliver 70 percent 5G population coverage within 12 months, issuing its most concrete directive yet on a technology rollout that has repeatedly missed deadlines since 2022.
Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations Minister Samuel Nartey George made the announcement on Wednesday, February 25, at the 30th Anniversary celebration of the National Communications Authority (NCA) in Accra, framing it as a Cabinet-approved policy decision to democratise and accelerate 5G deployment before Ghana’s 70th Independence Day in March 2027.
The minister disclosed that the ministry will issue clear directives to the NCA within days to commence preparations for a spectrum auction, expected to take place in the coming weeks. The regulator will simultaneously oversee two deployment tracks: the existing wholesale model through Next-Gen Infrastructure Company (NGIC) and a newly introduced network-led operations structure that will allow individual operators to deploy 5G infrastructure independently.
The two-track approach marks a direct policy reversal. Since August 2023, Ghana had officially ruled out a spectrum auction, instead granting NGIC exclusive rights to operate a neutral shared 5G network for a decade. Despite NGIC promising 350 cell sites by mid-2025 with 50 of them 5G-capable, operators never purchased capacity from the network and no commercial 5G service was launched. The previous government’s deadline for operators to roll out 5G services in Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi by end of 2024 passed without a single subscriber being connected.
The new directive therefore ends the NGIC monopoly experiment and reopens the door for MTN Ghana, Telecel, and other licensed operators to build and own 5G infrastructure directly. MTN Ghana Group Chief Executive Ralph Mupita, who visited Accra this month and met Minister George specifically to discuss 5G spectrum availability, has already outlined the company’s deployment plan. MTN intends to combine its 700 MHz and 3,500 MHz spectrum bands to deliver Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), a technology that transmits 5G broadband directly into homes without fibre cables, enabling households in peri-urban and rural areas to access high-speed internet through a rooftop receiver. The company operates more than 5,000 tower sites in Ghana and has committed to adding 500 new sites in 2026 alone.
The urgency is grounded in competitive pressure. While 8.2 million of MTN’s 29 million subscribers in Ghana were already on 4G at the end of 2024, only 445,000 of Telecel Ghana’s 6.5 million subscribers were on 4G — a gap that illustrates how unevenly Ghana’s 4G rollout itself was completed before the country began chasing the next generation of connectivity.
George acknowledged the scale of the challenge facing the NCA but expressed confidence in the regulator’s capacity to deliver. “It is a steep aspiration, but I am more than confident in the resilience and abilities of the people who run the NCA,” he said. The March 2027 target aligns with Ghana’s 70th Independence anniversary celebrations.
