Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Communication Minister of Ghana, has announced that the National Communication Authority (NCA) had granted additional spectrum to MTN and Vodafone to help them bear the brunt of the increased network traffic.
“The president has directed that the NCA should give more bandwidth spectrum to the telcos during this period for free and that has been done. Fortunately, we have only a limited amount of spectrum available and that has been given to the two telcos that are bearing the brunt of it; Vodafone and MTN,” said Owusu-Ekuful.
Third-place Ghanaian telco AirtelTigo was deemed to have sufficient spectrum, given its demand, so would not receive any additional bandwidth.
The government has also made it free to access coronavirus education websites, as well as government websites like those of the Ministry of Information and the Ghana Health Service.
Owusu-Ekuful took this announcement as an opportunity to call on citizens to be responsible with their network usage and limit themselves when it comes to downloading movies and music.
“Maybe it’s time for you to read that book that you’ve put aside for a long time,” she said.