MTN Ghana CEO hints of 5G launch next year

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Selorm Adadevoh, the CEO of MTN Ghana, has hinted that the telecoms market leader may deploy 5G in Ghana next year.

Conversations with MTN Ghana – 25 Years of Brightening Lives and Beyond was the theme of a special MTN@25 Business Executive Breakfast Series.

MTN has been at the forefront of technology innovation in Ghana for the past 25 years, having been the first to offer GSM, 2G, 3G, 4G, Mobile Money, and “hopefully 5G by next year,” according to the CEO.

MTN, according to Selorm Adadevoh, is not only concerned in being the first to innovate, but also in ensuring that the new innovation benefits its stakeholders, which include customers, enterprises, and the economy as a whole.

He assured that MTN’s present focus is on becoming a fully digital operator by 2023 and executing its Agenda 2025 plan, which includes positioning the network as a service (NaaS) to drive the digital Ghana agenda.

Selorm Adadevoh, speaking on behalf of MTN, stated that the company plans to roll out 4G to all of its base stations in Accra by the end of this year and that every base station nationwide will have 4G by the end of next year.

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“We recognize that taking risks is critical to our commitment to national growth, therefore we continue to prioritize risk over profit – which is why we invested in 3G and 4G even before the devices needed to drive uptake were available. “We invested in Mobile Money for six years without profit for the same reason,” he stated.

In response to MTN’s recent designation as substantial market power and the potential implementation of antitrust rules to limit its growth, he stated that such a move would be detrimental for a country like Ghana.

He explained that the infrastructure required to support the digital Ghana agenda is still absent and that more restrictions on a player with the ability to create such infrastructure would be a major “economic blunder.”

MTN, for example, had set aside $150 million for network infrastructure during the pandemic year but had spent about $200 million by the end of the year, according to Selorm Adadevoh.

Indeed, Minister of Communications and Digitalization Ursula Owusu-Ekuful noted at the introduction of MTN@25 that MTN had always taken the risk of investing while other players looked on, and asked MTN to use their SMP position to support the entire ecosystem through the NaaS plan.

MTN will continue to take risks in the national interest, as it has in the past, to guarantee that the digital Ghana agenda is realized throughout the country.