The Minister of Communication, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has revealed that government will complete the installation of a fibre optic network across the entire country, by the end of 2020.
This, she believes will help government effectively deliver on its promise of digitizing the economy.
As part of efforts to connect the country, then-President John Mahama inaugurated the Danish funded 38 million dollar Eastern Corridor Fibre-optic Backbone project in May 2015.
The 800-kilometer, fibre-optic cable extends from Ho in the Volta Region to Ghana’s border with Burkina Faso.
Speaking to the media, Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful stated that a robust fibre optic infrastructure will greatly improve telecom services across the country.
“The Eastern Corridor Fibre-optic Backbone project is supposed to provide the telecoms infrastructure on which all our digitization efforts would ride. Without a robust fiber optic network it will be too expensive to deliver telecommunication services to the remote parts of the country or deliver high-speed internet services to even those of us in the urban areas.”
The Minister expressed optimism about the completion of a fiber optic infrastructure across the country before the end of the first term of President Akufo-Addo.
“I hesitate to give journalist timelines but hopefully by the end of our first term in office, we should be well on our way to completing a fiber optic infrastructure across the country. We’re going to look at a mix of either terrestrial or aerial because galamsey is devastating a lot of fiber resources in the ground.”
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful was speaking at the technical handing over ceremony of the extended portion of the Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic backbone project from Ho to Accra by DANIDA to the Government of Ghana.
The original Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic backbone project extended only from Ho to the border with Burkina Faso.
According to the Minister, it was important that the project was linked to the sub-marine cables landing on the shores of Ghana, hence the extended portion of the Eastern Corridor Fiber Optic backbone project from.
Nokia – Alcatel-Lucent Denmark was responsible for executing the Ho – Accra Fibre Optic Extension Project.
The fiber optic project is expected to expand communication links between Ghana’s Coastal line and the Northern Boundary to Burkina Faso and it would improve communications links for central and regional administration offices in support of the national e-Ghana programme initiative.
The DANIDA delegation which did the technical handing over was led by the Danish ambassador to Ghana Tove Degnbol.
The final handing over of the project to government is expected to happen in April 2019.
Citifmonline