The Broadband Commission of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has ranked Ghana as the third country in Africa with the highest active mobile broadband subscriptions, according to the Commission’s ‘The state of broadband’ report released last week.
Globally, the report puts Ghana at the 51st position on a list that assesses the state of broadband development in about 179 countries.
Ghana’s position is an endorsement and a reward for the progress made over the past decade to boost internet access on the back of the exponential growth in mobile telephony.
But closer interpretation of Ghana’s mobile broadband uptake exposes the flaws in policy direction and how millions of people are being left behind in the mobile phone revolution.
The report authored by a body established by the United Nations as its specialized agency on ICT found that out of every 100 people in the country, nearly 67 of them have mobile broadband, which is the third highest in Africa behind that of Botswana and Cape Verde.
However, Ghana’s broadband access position deteriorates when assessed on the percentage of households with internet with the country moving further down the table to 7th in Africa and 57th in the world.
Further scrutiny of the report shows that when it comes to the percentage of individuals that use the internet, only 23.5 percent of individuals use the internet in the country, which places Ghana on the 132 position in the world and 16th in Africa; behind countries like Sudan, Swaziland, Seychelles and Gabon.
This means that of the estimated 27.5 million population of Ghana, more than 21 million people don’t have access to the internet.
The figure deviates sharply with that of the country’s National Communication Authority (NCA), which has pegged the total population with access to mobile data and broadband wireless access at a little over 18.8 million as at the end of June this year.
This thus indicates that the unique subscriber population of mobile data and broadband wireless access in the country is way too small and doesn’t not support the numbers churned out periodically to back the progress made in the development of the telecom sector as the majority of people do not have access to the internet or mobile services.
Nonetheless, this should come as a good news to mobile network operators especially those struggling to attract and retain subscribers that the mobile market will continue to grow albeit more slowly since most of the potential subscribers are in areas where economic conditions and topography that do not support business sense to roll-out services to.
The six licensed mobile network operators currently compete mostly in the 10 administrative regions of Ghana and other major towns with the competition fierce in the two most wealthiest and populous regions: Greater Accra and Ashanti region, which has a combined population of about 10 million.
It is very well acknowledged that the mobile network operators have a universal license that mandates them to roll-out services through-out the country but policy-makers and the industry may sometimes have different priorities especially when a policy will negatively affect the bottom line.
It is for this reason that the role of the Ghana Infrastructure Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC) is crucial to extending telecom services to underserved and unconnected areas.
Yet, the operations of GIFEC, which is funded from the one percent revenue contribution of all the network operators has largely failed to connect many underserved and economically challenged communities.
The decision by some network operators to ignore underserved areas and concentrate in the cities where subscription is nearly at a saturated level is based on the fact that the cost of extending services to deprived communities will not be met with the right compensation required to break even in an economy in which the cost of doing business is always rising amid the fact that affordability is still a challenge and out of reach of many people.
According to ITU’s latest price research, a monthly fixed broadband package cost 1.7% of average income in developed countries, compared with 31 percent of average income in developing countries, and 64 percent of average income in Africa.
More so, mobile broadband cost 1-2 percent of monthly income in developed countries, compared with 11-25% of monthly average income in developing countries.
That is why the raft of tax policies introduced by the government need to be relaxed to bring down the cost of operations and give breathing space to mobile network operators to commit more resources to investment and deployment of mobile services to unconnected areas as this will help to ensure that mobile broadband increase to ubiquitous levels.
After all, the World Bank in its Information and Communications for Development report published in about seven years ago has long noted that a 10 percentage points of broadband penetration results in 1.21 percent increase in per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in developed countries, and 1.38 percent increase in developing countries.
This means that broadband has more impact in developing than developed countries.
Thus investing in broadband is an investment in economic growth and indirect investment in development.
But for broadband to affect development, it must be made accessible and affordable, which is why the 20 percent import tax on mobile phones needs to be scrapped to put broadband-enabled devices in peoples’ hands.
According to the ITU, broadband and ICTs have a unique potential to support countries to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by 2030 since mobile has become one of the most profound enablers of social and economic growth in our time and will underpin many of the solutions needed to address the world’s most pressing development challenges, captured in the SDGs.
The SDGs have set everyone on an incredible path to solving the greatest challenges presently faced and mobile networks have the power to accelerate this journey in a way that no other technology can.
However, fulfilling this potential needs continued investments in the necessary networks and services to expand access to broadband for all.
That is why government’s policies must align to the business objectives of telecom network operators to ensure that achievements on the telecom front transcend to every home and individual in the country and create value in peoples’ lives.
B&FT