Page 134 - SAMENA Trends - March-April 2022

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Ghana has extended its deadline for citizens to register The processing for ID cards has been reportedly
and link their details to SIM cards, admitting it will not be slow with some citizens waiting for hours in line to
able to register all SIMs within the original timeframe. process their details. More time is also required to
In a statement, the Ministry of Communications and facilitate diplomats and residents that are abroad. “We
Ghana Digitalization has said there was a number of factors commend all Ghanaians and foreign residents in Ghana
for their support in ensuring that through this exercise,
to not meeting its original March 31 deadline, a key
one being people have yet to obtain their national we develop and build a credible SIM database with
identity cards. The SIM registration order began on integrity, which will help address issues of cyber fraud
October 1 last year but as of March 17 only 14 million and promote secure SIM Card based transactions as
SIM cards have been linked to Ghana Cards, and over part of our efforts to digitally transform the economy,
7.5 million citizens have yet to obtain their ID cards. said Owusu-Ekulful. Ghana's decision to implement
The deadline has been extended to July 31. “It is clear a national ID card scheme has seen pushback from
that the deadline for completion of the registration of citizens concerned with data privacy.
the remaining active SIM cards cannot be met,” said (March 23, 2022) developingtelecoms.com
minister of communications Ursula Owusu-Ekulful.

The Prime Minister Mark Phillips has requested that availability, packet loss ratio, average throughput,
industry regulator the Public Utilities Commission latency and jitter. The PM was quoted as saying in
(PUC) develop a set of quality of service (QoS) the missive: ‘The Government of Guyana is extremely
benchmarks for operators to abide by, following a string concerned at numerous reports of poor quality of public
Guyana of customer complaints regarding internet services. telecommunication services, especially with respect
Local daily Demerara Waves writes that the PM, in
to fixed and mobile broadband internet services. I am
a letter to the PUC, asked that the regulator amend advised that the institution of appropriate technical
the Telecommunications (Consumer) Protection QoS Standards is a necessary part of the solution to
Regulations 2020 to include QoS requirements for this issue.’ (April 12, 2022) commsupdate.com

The telecoms watchdog the Electronic Communications ten rural areas of the country (nine of which currently
Office of Iceland (ECOI) has extended Vodafone have no 5G access) – covering 90% of the population
Iceland’s (Syn’s) 5G concession in the 3600MHz band in these settlements with minimum downlink of
until 31 March 2023, following a public consultation 200Mbps – as well as deploy 40 5G transmitters and
Iceland on the topic in February. According to the terms of provide 5G to over 25% of the population. According
the frequency authorization, Syn will embark on an
to the approved plan, 5G networks must be built in six
‘extensive’ deployment project in the forthcoming settlements before 31 September 2022.
twelve months, committing to build 5G networks in (March 22, 2022) commsupdate.com

Around a third of base transceiver stations (BTS) in those set by the central government. To address the
India are connected to fiber networks, reducing the issue, the minister said that the government is creating
potential footprint of 5G networks when the technology a collaborative institutional mechanism for the central
is introduced, the Indian Express writes, citing government, states and local bodies for common RoW,
India Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. The minister standardization of costs and timelines for approval,
told parliament that 793,551 of the roughly 2.3 million
and removal of barriers for grant of approvals.
BTS in service as at 1 February 2022 were fiberized, (April 11, 2022) commsupdate.com
equivalent to around 34.5% of the sites. Fiberization of
BTS is an important component for the deployment of Industry watchdog the Telecom Regulatory Authority of
5G networks but service providers in India have faced India (TRAI) has issued a decision clarifying its recent
obstacles in connecting the majority of their sites to tariff order regarding pre-paid plans. The updated
fiber. According to the minister, the main barriers have wording of the regulator’s order states that for pre-paid
been related to Right of Way (RoW), with providers plans that renew automatically on the same date each
facing high costs, complex processes and delays due month, if that renewal date is not available the renewal
to the failure of state authorities to align RoW rules with date should instead be the last date of the month. For

134 MARCH-APRIL 2022