MTN inaugurates third data switch centre

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE leading telecommunication company in the country, MTN Ghana, inaugurated a $100 million switch and data center at Legon in Accra to enhance its service delivery to customers.
The high capacity facility brings to three, the number of switch and data centers in the country apart from those at Sakaman in Accra, and Kaase in the Ashanti Region.
Mr Misto said the center houses the latest IP technology and the superior Blade Cluster Technology, which provides high speed connectivity for greater amount of calls than any other technology does, and also seamlessly hands over traffic from a broken channel to proper ones without calls dropping.
With the sixth competitor, Glo Ghana, now in full operation, the telecoms sector is set to witness much more intense competition for which reason quality of service and good customer experience will be one of the benchmarks to maintain or lose market share.
Total investments into the three facilities comes to more than $285 million according to  the General Manager for Network Service at MTN Ghana, Mr Ibrahim Misto  and noted that the move was intended among other things to improve customer experience on MTN.
The new investment also bring to more than $1.2 billion the total investments the company has made in Ghanaian economy since its entry into the market more than a decade ago.
Mr Mitso said the data centre had enough redundant capacity to store large amounts of data for both individual and corporate clients.
The switches, he said could also retain a huge capacity and the technology to forestall any issues of congestion on the network.
In case of disaster on the facility at its Sakaman switch, he said the new one would automatically takeover the work load at the new facility to avoid any major disruptions in service to clients.
Mr Misto said the switch and data centre was one of the many strategies and solutions MTN was adopting to maintain its position as the operator with the best quality of network service in spite of the many challenges.
On her part, the Corporate Services Executive for MTN Ghana, Ms Cynthia Lumor, said in spite of the fact that MTN had now resorted to installing fibre on poles, instead of underground, to prevent cuts during road constructions; the fibre still gets cut through bush fires and other human activities.
Ms Lumor said MTN had invested more than US$100 million in the West African Communication System (WACS) fibre optic cable, which had already landed in Ghana, and would go live soon to further enhance services both in data and voice.
The Deputy Director of the National Communication Authority (NCA), Mr Albert Enninful said the regulator had created the environment for telcos to thrive and urged them to take advanatage of the opportunity to provide quality service to customers.