MTN to invest $ 143.7 million on expansion and improvement of infrastructure

Telco giant MTN hopes to invest about $143.7 million on expansion and improvement of the network this year.
This, the company says is in line with their vision of anchoring and championing as part of Ghana 60 years on celebration, a “A Bold New Digital World for National Transformation”.
Corporate Services Executive Cynthia Lumor, at a media engagement here in Takoradi however revealed that setbacks such as fiber cuts and theft of fuel and DC battery are hampering their operations.
“Some of the market conditions that I talked about, the environmental conditions; things like fiber cuts, power surges, with battery theft that we talked about, all these are challenges we also focus on trying to solve”, she told the media after the round table presentation and discussion at the Raybow International Hotel.
Mrs. Lumor said with the issue of fiber cuts, the company tried to put in a lot of redundancies. However, “there are still instances where we get for example quadruple fiber cuts which means, the fiber is cut in four places; so all that cap that we’ve put in place then becomes useless”, she said; adding that it was an ongoing problem that they needed to fix.
Much of the fiber cuts on MTN’s network were caused by road construction and lately illegal mining activities in the northern parts of the Western Region and elsewhere in the country.
Mrs Lumor revealed that her company is in talks with stakeholders to curtail the disturbance on their infrastructure.
“It’s a problem that impact just not MTN but all of us because as much as we’ve all come to depend on our phones and other devices, when the fiber is cut it means that those of us who are served in whatever area that is impacted by the cut fiber do not get access to those services we need or want to do”.
She said management of MTN has had meetings with the Minister of Road and Highways, who has assured support. MTN has also had discussions with Department of Urban Roads and some Contractor Associations to curtail the disturbance on their fiber optic network.
According to Mrs Lumor, “it’s a problem that we hope we can all collaborate to resolve”

By: Joe Bright Nyarko