11 Institutions Prioritised To Get Data Resources Amidst Internet Disruptions

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has met 11 key institutions to understand the difficulties they are facing following disruptions in internet connectivity in Ghana.

A major internet outage struck West and Central Africa on Thursday, March 14, 2024, which affected internet connectivity in Ghana. A number of countries in West Africa, including Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, and Burkina Faso experienced significant impacts. 

Even though service providers have intensified their remedy efforts to restore internet connectivity in Ghana, many consumers of internet are still facing challenges performing certain basic functions on the internet. 

The NCA therefore held a meeting today, March 18, 2024, with the critical public and private institutions to find a way to help secure better internet connectivity for them to aid their operations. The 11 institutions are:

1. Bank of Ghana (BoG)
2. Ghana Association of Banks (GAB)
3. Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS)
4. Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE)
5. Central Securities Depository 
6. Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL)
7. Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)
8. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)
9. Subsea Cable Landing Service Providers 
10. Ghana Internet Exchange (GIX)
11. Accra Internet Exchange (AIX)

The NCA in a statement said the objective of the meeting was to understand and find solutions to the peculiar challenges facing financial and public utility service providers regarding the impact of the current data connectivity disruptions affecting banking transactions and digital payments of utilities such as water and electricity.

At the end of the meeting, it was agreed that due to the limited bandwidth currently available, MNOs would review their operations and consider the possibility of prioritising and allocating more data resources to the above-mentioned and other critical services while they work with the Subsea cable Landing Service Providers to progressively improve internet data capacity.

It was further recommended that the financial and utility service providers should in the medium to long term, consider hosting critical services locally to ensure continous service delivery in the event of a major disruption such as the current situation and to leverage local internet exchanges (GIX and AIX)

The meeting also noted that the Subsea Cable Landing Service Providers and MNOs progressively continue to review capacity from their international partners as they work towards full restoration of data services. Users experience will continue to improve as additional capacity becomes available. 

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