Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and ... - ITU

Exchange points directly address two obstacles to ICT growth (international bandwidth costs and network
latency), and thus, provide two main benefits:
• Short-term benefits: once ISPs are connected to the GIX, they no longer pay international bandwidth
costs for local, Ghanaian traffic.
• Long-term benefits: once ISPs are connected to the GIX, latency or transit time of traffic is dramatically
reduced, since it stays within the same network. This increased speed and reliability makes it possible
to offer additional “value-added” services on the national network, including web content hosting,
audio and video streaming, e-commerce, e-governance. This means that ISPs and local businesses will
no longer need to go outside Ghana for advanced Internet solutions.
In Ghana, the cost of Internet bandwidth and connectivity is high compared to many other countries, and
challenges related to Internet access and connectivity are still prevalent (Box 8).
Box 8. Internet access
”The Honourable Minister of Communications in Ghana, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, has noted with
concern the low Internet penetration figures in developing countries at a time when ICT is being
used to overcome the handicaps in our development process. Giving some statistics, he said, while
telephone access has reached the 75.4% mark, covering up to 17 million subscribers, the Internet
access in Ghana is still low and hovering around 18% covering about 4 million people, most of
whom use the mobile Internet...the Minister entreated participants to place the interests of Africa
and the developing world uppermost in their considerations. “Our needs are unique, he stated. We
have the challenge to provide Universal Access and develop infrastructure to reach our
communities, which may not be the concern of the more endowed economies”.
Source: AfrISPA (March, 2011).
Connecting to a local or national exchange like GIX ensures that locally destined e-mails are sent at a lower
cost. With the offsetting of the local traffic to the exchange point, the upgrading of international links of
operators can be postponed for an additional period, saving on the International link capacity. These savings
can further be extended to the operators’ customers. Interconnecting to the GIX will improve uploads and
higher quality of service access to local content.
d) Implementation of Ghana’s e-government network
In March 2012, the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) announced that eleven Ghanaian
government departments and agencies were ready to commence with e-government projects to improve
service to its citizens. Plans announced include the implementation of an e-justice system, e-immigration,
e-parliament, e-passport and e-Government Procurement system 39 .
The nationwide e-Government infrastructure will extend the national backbone infrastructure to all districts
in the country, and will provide a national data centre and a secondary data centre facility for disaster
recovery capability. This network will connect all public institutions and Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs) and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), to a single shared
communications and computing infrastructure to facilitate effective delivery of government services to
citizens and businesses alike. The proposed network is configured to reach up to 1050 sites around the
country covering all 170 Districts; 550 locations via wireless last mile access networks and an additional
500 locations via other means.
The target sites will be reached through several different means, including direct fibre optic connectivity,
high capacity microwave links, VSAT access over the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MoFEP)
VSAT network and leased terrestrial circuits from local telecom and ISP providers. This will enable the
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