[ 2016-12-06 ]

MTN seeks 4G partnerships in first year of license
It has been a year since MTN got its 4G license,
and they are already in talks with other 4G
players in the country for partnership.

The telecoms market leader was the only company
which won one of the two 800MHz spectrum slots at
US$67.5million on December 2, 2015.

Four companies paid a non-refundable fee of
GHC250, 000 each to participate in an auction for
that spectrum pair, but the other three did not
even show up so MTN became a default winner of
one.

MTN deployed the service exactly six months after
winning the license, as it promised, and has since
spread 4G to all regional capitals across the
country and to some key selected towns, with an
initial investment of US$18 million for 2016
alone.

Partnership

Whereas MTN boasts of having "the widest 4G
coverage in Ghana, and one of the widest in Africa
in less than one year", the company said it is
already talking partnership with all the Broadband
Wireless Access (BWA) license holders who also
offer 4G LTE services on the 2600MHz spectrum
band.

In response to a questionnaire from Adom News in
commemoration of the first anniversary, MTN said
"we are open to partnerships with all interested
parties and we continue to engage all BWAs in the
best interest of the industry."

But some telco executives have recently hinted
that their pursuit of partnerships with BWAs ran
into a roadblock because the industry regulator,
National Communications Authority (NCA) is not
allowing it.

MTN, however, said, "Where there is value in
partnering, MTN will seize the opportunity subject
to regulatory approval where required."

Adom News has independently confirmed from at
least the leading BWA licensee, Surfline, that
indeed they met with the MTN CEO and talked about
how they can leverage on each other's strengths to
expand 4G.

Surfline and the other BWAs like Blu, Broadband
Home (BBH) and Goldkey got their licenses for only
US$6million each; but they have been struggling
for the past four years to expand coverage and to
meet the five-year deadline to provide service in
60 percent of all district capitals.

The biggest among them, Surfline is pretty much in
Accra and parts of Takoradi, while Blu and BBH are
only in pockets of Accra and Goldkey has not even
started commercial service.

The BWAs licenses allow them to offload up to 30
per cents shares to external investors. The
telcos, like MTN, which are largely foreign-owned
and have the infrastructure and the financial
muscle, have shown interest in the 30 percent.

Shares

Speaking of shares, there is a regulatory
requirement on MTN to also offload 35 per cent
shares in its company to Ghanaians after acquiring
the 4G license.

This is expected to be done either via an open
public offer or a private placement on the Ghana
Stock Exchange, or any other legal means within
the next one month.

It has been one year and MTN said they are still
going through the regulatory process with the
Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the NCA
to make it happen sooner than later.

Customer Experience

But how has customer experience been like in the
first six months of MTN 4G?
Everyone MTN 4G customer Adom News spoke with,
described the service as simply great, except it
is a bit more expensive than the other 4G
services.

One avowed user of MTN 4G LTE is KofiTV, arguably
the biggest Facebook live television channel in
the country.

KofiTV has used MTN 4G to cover major political
and national events, covered big breaking news
stories and also done very gripping live
interviews across the country over the last few
months.

Founder and CEO of KofiTV, Kofi Adomah told Adom
News "MTN 4G is simply the best."

According to him, he started running KofiTV with
another 4G services and later tried another one,
but both gave him coverage limitations and
frequent service interruptions, but since he
switched to MTN 4G Mifi, the live streaming has
been smooth no matter the location.

He said KofiTV is even able to split the screen
and show pre-recorded footage and or live feed
from other cameras, and also do live Facebook
calls simultaneously and yet face no service
interruptions.

"With MTN 4G I have been able to do live KofiTV
from Kumasi, Sunyani, Cape Coast and other parts
of the country without any interruption and I
think that is really great," he said.

Kofi Adomah also said on the other 4G networks he
did not have coverage at home, but MTN 4G gives
him coverage at home and he is able to work from
home as well.

"I consume a lot of data on KofiTV and I noticed
that MTN 4G is a little more expensive than the
two others I tried earlier but I prefer it to the
others because it is by far the best in terms of
service quality and coverage," he said.

Kofi said he was even willing to bring MTN 4G on
board as a sponsor of KofiTV because of the great
experience, but MTN is yet to respond to his
invite.

Expansion

Speaking of coverage and experience, MTN is
assuring existing and potential customers that
between 2017 and 2019 it will embark on a steady
expansion of 4G across the country to ensure more
people have access.

"We have plans to expand the coverage to reach
more areas in Ghana to enable our customers to
experience higher-speed mobile internet on the
same mobile phone from which they make and receive
voice calls," it said.

It is also promising to introduce more innovative
services that will support the growth of
businesses and ultimately boosting national
development, and also make video services which
require high-speed bandwidth available, and
accessible to all.

The decision

At the time of the 800MHz spectrum auction, there
was an industry-wide outcry against the
US$67.5million minimum auction price, but MTN said
its business case for the acquisition of the
spectrum took into consideration some key factors
that made it worth their while.

They said the company's decision was partly driven
by the fact that telecoms worldwide, is moving
towards greater data speeds and 4G technology is
the next step in that journey to making the lives
of customers a whole lot brighter.

Meanwhile, industry experts have always cautioned
that 4G devices are not easily affordable in
Ghana, so such heavy investment into a 4G network
is not the smartest thing to do. The BWAs'
struggle to generate revenue seems to support that
assertion.

But MTN said "The revenue projections made for the
4G license provision was not for us to attain
Return on Investment (ROI) within a year. It is an
ongoing process and in line with our long-term
digital strategy."

The company said they are also working with device
manufacturers and distributors to source
affordable 4G devices to make it easy for many
more Ghanaians to access 4G LTE services.

"Subscribers replacing their legacy devices
(handsets and others) to 4G compatible type is
also very key to the expansion of 4G across the
country," they said.

It is important to note that MTN is currently in
partnership with handset dealers like Mobile Zone
and i2 through which they churning out relatively
affordable 4G brands from Tecno and Huawei among
others to boost uptake.

MTN said they so far they do not see any
immediately recognisable bottlenecks on the
regulatory front so Ghanaians can rest assured
that their 4G expansion will continue until it is
available everywhere.

Source - Joyfm

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