ICT businesses that can guarantee excellent QoS (quality of service) will emerge as the preferred mobile providers for both consumer and enterprise services in Ghana, according to the International Data Corporation's (IDC) newly released Ghana ICT Market Overview for 2017.

The IDC says while the Ghanaian ICT market is more mature in comparison to other West African countries, QoS remains a challenge in the country, with telcos and ISPs struggling to offer seamless connectivity of voice and data services.

Oluwole Babatope, Senior Research Analyst for Telecommunications and IoT at IDC West Africa says they expect more consolidation in the Ghanaian market as struggling telcos and ISPs seek partnerships to drive stronger competition.

"In the short-to-medium term, mobile money services will be key to growing the customer base. We expect that multimedia and triple-play services will lead customer retention and acquisition strategies, especially as fibre connectivity improves nationwide. Managed services are expected to grow, driven by requirements to reduce in-house data centre infrastructure costs."

IDC believes the Tigo-Airtel merger signals a trend and will be the first of many consolidations as service providers compete for survival in Ghana.

"Differentiation will be key to remain competitive and for the enterprise market segment a vertical-driven approach will be the game-changer. Telcos, ISPs and IT service providers should develop a clear understanding of client requirements and create tailor-made solutions if they want to remain ahead of their competitors."

Babatope believes the quality of ICT services provided to the SME segment in Ghana must improve as it has also been neglected by telcos and service providers for a long time due to their limited budgets, internal IT capabilities and their tendency to seek a quick return on investment.

"Telcos need to specifically target SMEs and propose B2B payments for services. As mobile money matures, telcos, in partnership with Nigerian banks, will be well positioned to carry out cross-border remittances," he says.

The IDC report commends Ghana's new government which it says has shown considerable willingness to improve and expand ICT infrastructure in the country, although some concerns remain.

"Ongoing government projects require investments in infrastructure, network and systems integration, data centres, custom software development and support services. Concerns relating to bureaucracy and, more specifically, delayed vendor payments, mean that partnerships with the government should be structured for long-term benefits, rather than short-term gains," concluded Babatope.

PKI infrastructure

Recently, Ghana's Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Minister for Communications in Ghana told the Ami Mehl, the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana that the country is in need of support from Israel for the development of PKI Infrastructure and the establishment of Certification Authorities to provide authentication for digital signatures and certificates during a visit by the ambassador earlier this year.

The Minister said the infrastructure is required to develop robust e-governance architecture and provide addition to e-ID and the Digital Address Systems to help Ghana join the ranks of digital countries.

Ghana is currently ranked 112 out of 175 countries on the latest International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ICT development index released late last year.

The ITU found that mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in Ghana are at 129.74 while the percentage of households with computer was found to be only 43.50%.

The percentage of Ghanaian households with Internet access is 34.15%.