Connecting rural Ghana to the world of opportunities
Recently, the need to enable communication and engagements via the Internet in both urban and rural areas for social impact and economic benefits has become even more important to governments, including the government of Ghana.
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But rural areas of Ghana are high on the agenda of government to have them connected to the endless world of opportunities the Internet delivers, using rural telephony infrastructure powered by solar energy.
According to a World Bank report, there is a direct increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country with every increase in broadband Internet penetration. Specifically, there is up to 1.38 per cent growth in GDP of a country whenever there is a 10 per cent increase in broadband Internet penetration.
Expanding connection in Ghana
Ghana can now boast of 29.6 million mobile phone subscriptions, six telecom operators, four licensed 4G LTE operators, 14.6 million mobile cellular users and a growing number of value-added service providers.
These factors have impacted and are redefining the future economic benefits and social impacts the Internet will have on the lives of the users in Ghana and the corresponding national development effect on the country as a whole.
In a conversation with the Deputy Minister of Communication, Mr Ato Sarpong, he detailed the three-pronged approach of the government of Ghana to connect its citizens to the world of opportunities.
He intimated that the government was focusing firstly on creating the conducive Policy and Regulatory Environment to enable businesses to thrive in the ICT sector. Secondly, government is investing in developing the right infrastructure to support the growth of the sector with the 780km fibre connectivity on the eastern corridor and additional 670km (including 300km offshore fibre) on the western corridor which will be ready next year.
Finally the need to have strong institutions to provide guidance to the private sector in order to grow the digital economy of Ghana is crucial to the government.
In order to increase data usage and Internet penetration, the government has also removed the 20 per cent tax on smart-phone importation from 2015 so more people can buy smart-phones.
This will increase the number of people who use smart-phones to an estimated 15 per cent of the total mobile phone subscriptions.
Connecting underserved communities
However, rural telephony is at the heart of the agenda of the government to connect people in the underserved and unserved communities; where the Telecom companies do not see any commercial viability to invest in infrastructure.
This is to open up the rural areas to the opportunities those living in the urban areas have through the Internet and also connect the rural communities to the urban ones to facilitate communication and economic development.
Mr Sarpong emphasised how the government strongly believes that “if we open up the opportunities for mobile telephony in rural areas, they will be part of the whole economic environment in Ghana so they can contribute economically as well as participate in democratic conversations on how the country develops.”
That is why the government invests in developing rural telephony infrastructure using the one per cent of income the telecom operators contribute to the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC).
In an interview, Mr Richard Hlormador, a telecom engineer and Founder and Chairman of KNET Ghana Limited, said he was passionate about how his company was focused on delivering critical services to grow the country’s telecom sector.
KNet started as computer suppliers but are now into building telecom base stations, providing wide area networks and Virtual Private Network solutions, ecommerce, rural telephony and VSAT services.
He believes that “anywhere you can put a dish as big as a metre you can activate digital civilisation (or data connectivity) instantly which supports voice, video, television, internet, email, and other services.”
More importantly, he talked about KNet’s flagship product, rural telephony, inspired by his belief in the fact that the next-billion economy is in the rural areas and that if we (as country) are able to enable these people using rural telephony, the economy of Ghana will grow very fast.
The main objective of the rural telephony project is to build 2G/3G base stations with small cellular antennas to provide free Internet Wi-Fi services in addition to traditional voice services to underprivileged and deprived Ghanaian communities with populations of less than 2000 people. The project is funded by the government of Ghana through GIFEC.
In June 2014, Ghana’s Rural Telephony Project won the Best Project Award for Information and Communication Infrastructure at the just-ended International Telecommunications Unions’ conference (WSIS Project Prizes Ceremony) held in Geneva, Switzerland.
Climbing mountains for signals
Hitherto, according to Mr Hlormador, people in some of the rural communities climb up mountains for better signals from the telecom companies in order to make calls to their families and friends in urban areas or other rural communities.
Over time, some people got tired of climbing and it became the business of some of the youth in the communities to climb up the mountain to relay information on behalf of those who could not go and return with the reply for a fee.
Additionally, some of the youth have received solar charging units to charge the mobile phones of the people in the rural areas at a fee.
Mr Hlormador also has the fascinating idea of providing rural areas with off-grid solar-powered generators to help rural areas power their devices and homes.
Economic and social impacts
After the installation of the local telephony infrastructure (a base station), people can now make calls without climbing up the mountain for signals. Students now have access to the Internet for studies, teachers can now do their research online and pregnant women can call health service personnel or doctors for consultation.
Farmers can also know the prices of crops in the market place before they go and sell and families in those areas can now connect with the rest of the world.
Interestingly, in some of the rural areas, foreigners who live in those communities can now Skype, WhatsApp and communicate with their families abroad.
“There is usually a gathering of these people within the proximity of these base stations as early as 7:30 a.m. to communicate with their families and loved ones,” Mr Hlormador said with excitement.
People who work in the rural areas are now retained because they have access to Internet just like their families and friends in the urban areas. Teachers, doctors and national service personnel who formerly did not want to stay in these rural areas because of the lack of these facilities are now ready to stay.
He spoke about how “some of the smart students of the farmers in these rural areas are able to WhatsApp pictures to people who want to buy their products and they sell online. They sometimes deliver the products to the buyers at a fee and bring the money to their parents.”
If the government continues to connect more people in the unserved rural communities in addition to the over 50 connected areas so far, it will connect these areas to the world of economic and social opportunities.
Mr Hlormador is certain that “if we take care of the rural, we have taken care of the economy.”
More so, the deputy minister also thinks that “once we connect the rural areas using rural telephony, there will be development and the ultimate beneficiary will be Ghana, because GDP will also go up.”
