The National Communications Authority (NCA) has announced it will publish the individual performance data of every telecom operator in Ghana, giving consumers for the first time a public, network-by-network view of how each provider is meeting its obligations, as part of a broader push to resolve the country’s persistent quality of service crisis.
NCA Director-General Rev. Ing. Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko made the announcement in response to mounting public frustration over dropped calls, slow internet speeds and patchy coverage, particularly in peri-urban and rural communities. He said the situation had become a direct threat to public trust in the sector.
“The service Ghanaians pay for must be the service they receive,” Fianko said, adding that the regulator would not hesitate to enforce compliance where operators fall short of required standards.
He acknowledged the contradiction at the heart of the problem: Ghana has achieved mobile network coverage of between 95 and 99 percent, yet the quality of service within that coverage footprint remains inconsistent, with some communities reporting little to no usable connectivity in practice. He described the gap between coverage statistics and actual consumer experience as unacceptable.
Earlier this year, the NCA directed all mobile network operators to submit detailed explanations for declining service quality alongside concrete remediation plans. The regulator has since reviewed those submissions and concluded that operators have produced credible roadmaps covering capacity expansion, new site construction, transmission upgrades, improved power reliability, and deployment of advanced network technologies.
The publication of performance data represents the next enforcement step. The NCA made the move in the context of wider regulatory reforms it has been implementing throughout 2026. In February, the authority replaced Quality of Service (QoS) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that had been in place since 2004, reducing the maximum allowable call drop rate from 3 percent to below 1 percent, raising minimum data speeds to 1 megabit per second, and for the first time making coverage of all constituent towns within every Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembly (MMDA) a mandatory licence condition rather than a voluntary target.
The NCA is also preparing a nationwide consumer education campaign to help subscribers understand their service quality rights and how to lodge complaints effectively. Fianko said making performance data publicly available would not only hold operators to account but would enable consumers to make better-informed choices, turning them into active participants in driving up standards across Ghana’s telecom sector.
