By: Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor |Connecting Africa
Accra, Ghana –Friday, April 25,2025-Ghana’s minister of communication, digital technology and innovations has set a firm deadline of June 2025 for the Next Generation Infrastructure Company (NGIC) to launch 5G services in the country.
Ghana’s Minister of Communication, Digital Technology, and Innovations, Sam George.
Ghana’s Minister of Communication, Digital Technology, and Innovations, Sam George.(Source: Ghana Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology, and Innovations)
Sam George, Ghana’s minister of communication, digital technology and innovations, has set a firm deadline of June 2025 for the Next Generation Infrastructure Company (NGIC) to launch 5G services in the West African country.
Speaking on The Point of View with Bernard Avle on Channel 1 TV, the minister said that during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Spain earlier this year the NGIC had promised to deliver 5G services by May 2025.
“They initially told me May at MWC in Barcelona. Subsequently, in Ghana, they said June, and I told them I would hold them until the June deadline,” he explained.
“As we speak today, 5G does not have a consumer market case; 5G is industry specific. The commercialization of 5G is not in people downloading videos – it is in use cases like telemedicine, like your ports and mining,” he said.
He added that if the June deadline is not met, all options are on the table.
“I am not quick to just cancel contractual agreements; however, I am very open to renegotiating and restructuring arrangements. The regulator has the legal power to amend the terms of any license that has been given. So, if by June, we are still where we are, we will have another conversation,” George concluded.
Ghana’s 5G journey
In November 2024, NGIC announced its readiness to collaborate with telcos and Internet service providers (ISPs) to launch 5G services, citing that telcos MTN Ghana, Airtel Ghana and Telecel would roll out the services to their customers before the end of 2024 in the cities of Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi.
This was after Ghana’s government announced in August 2023 that it did not plan to auction 5G spectrum but would rather establish a “neutral shared infrastructure company” to deliver nationwide 4G and 5G services.
Sam George on The Point of View with Bernard Avle.
Minister Sam George said if the June 2025 deadline is not met, renegotiations will be on the table. (Source: Ghana’s Ministry of Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations)
However, the rollout deadlines have been repeatedly postponed – from December 2024 to January 2025, and now June 2025 is the latest target date.
In January 2025, former minister Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said that deploying 5G services hinged on telecom operators purchasing the necessary capacity and providing it to their customers.
NGIC boasts 16 5G-ready cell sites, with its core network successfully inspected by the National Communications Authority (NCA).
However, according to George, NGIC promised 350 cell sites by June 2025, 50 of them 5G-capable, with 200-250 sites focused on Accra and 100-150 sites in Kumasi.
Ghana’s mobile ecosystem
While Ghana’s 5G rollout is scheduled for June 2025, according to statistics from market research company Omdia, an estimated 8.2 million of MTN Ghana’s 29 million subscribers were on 4G at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. Meanwhile only 445,000 subscribers of Telecel Ghana’s almost 6.5 million subscribers were on 4G in the same period.
The majority of AT Ghana’s 4.9 million subscribers were still using 3G, while the majority of Glo Mobile’s almost 345,000 mobile subscribers were also on 3G at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024.
Source: Connecting Africa
Edited: Jesefu Morris Keita| Editor-In-Chief|
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