Ericsson to roll out MTN’s LTE network in Ghana

Ericsson has announced it will be deploying its full LTE network for MTN in Ghana, bringing 4G connectivity to the capital.

According to Ericsson, it will be supplying the pan-African operator with a full HSPA and LTE-based mobile broadband network. The first deployment will occur across the country’s capital, Accra, and the entire Greater Accra region in the south of the country.

WCDMA/HSPA combined with LTE is likely to account for roughly 80% of subscriptions across Africa by 2021, according to Ericsson’s Mobility Report. In the same time period, LTE subscriptions are likely to grow 28 times with data usage set to rise 15-fold. As such, rolling out a new infrastructure across Ghana’s most populated areas will go a long way to growing the country’s digital economy and readying it for future services.

Africa is one of the fastest emerging economies for digital services as mobile broadband presents the most feasible opportunity for a sizable percentage of the population to access the internet. Ebenezer Twun Asanta, CEO of MTN Ghana, sees the rollout as essential in helping Ghanaian citizens access modern services.

“MTN Ghana is happy to roll out its LTE services,” he said. “Our customers are looking for world-class data access that is capable of meeting all their unique connectivity requirements and we are excited at the opportunity to provide them this latest technology.”

The announcement adds to another recent MTN-win for Ericsson, after it successfully trialled LTE-U technology by aggregating 10MHz from the 1800MHz spectrum band, and 20MHz from the 5GHz bands. Ericsson says indoor app coverage will be improved for smartphone users, whether they’re using LTE-U, licensed cellular or wifi.