The National Communications Authority has commemorated the 2026 World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) alongside its 30th anniversary with an industry stakeholder forum aimed at reflecting on the evolution of communications regulation and charting the future of Ghana’s digital ecosystem.
Held on the theme, “NCA @ 30: Stakeholder Reflections on Regulation, Innovation and the Future of Ghana’s Communications Industry,” the event brought together key actors across the telecommunications sectors to assess Ghana’s communications journey over the past three decades and discuss priorities for the future.
Speaking at the event on Monday in Accra, the Director-General of the NCA, Rev. Ing. Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, reflected on Ghana’s communications transformation over the last three decades, noting that access to telecommunications had shifted from privilege to necessity.
He recalled that 30 years ago, telephone access in Ghana was largely restricted, with households waiting months to be connected, while innovations such as mobile money, video conferencing, cloud computing and digital entrepreneurship were virtually unimaginable.
According to him, today the communications sector supports more than 43 million mobile subscribers within a national population of approximately 35 million, making Ghana one of the countries with the highest mobile penetration rates in West Africa.
Rev. Fianko stressed that the sector’s growth was not solely driven by regulation but also by investments from operators, broadcasters, internet service providers, submarine cable operators, consumer advocacy groups and citizens who contributed to building the communications market.
Rev. Fianko announced that the authority has tightened quality-of-service benchmarks and will publish performance data to enable consumers to assess operator performance against obligations.
He added that enforcement actions would be pursued where necessary, alongside a nationwide consumer education campaign to improve public awareness of service quality standards.
He disclosed that earlier this year, the NCA directed mobile network operators to present detailed explanations for declining service quality and measures to address the problem.
Following a review of the proposals, he said operators had outlined credible plans involving infrastructure expansion, new sites, fibre relocation, transmission upgrades, power reliability improvements and advanced technologies to improve service delivery.
The Director General called for broader national cooperation to improve communications infrastructure, arguing that service quality cannot be addressed by regulators and telecom operators alone.
He cited fibre cuts caused by road construction, delays in site permits, vandalism of telecom infrastructure and destruction linked to illegal mining activities as significant obstacles affecting service reliability.
He urged communities to support telecom infrastructure development, road contractors and utility providers to coordinate excavation activities, and security agencies to treat vandalism of telecom infrastructure as a serious offence.
The NCA Director-General disclosed that the authority is working on broader policy and regulatory issues, including market competition, dominance concerns, fifth-generation network deployment and artificial intelligence governance.
Judith Twumwaa, ISD
