Analysis of the Proposed Ghana Broadband Strategy

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: B+, Aalborg University (Centre for Communications Media and Information Technology), course: Master in Information Communications Technology, language: English, abstract: This project studied the Ghana Broadband Strategy with the aim of evaluating the recommendations in the strategy side by side the broadband development in Ghana. The researchers conducted interviews both officially and unofficially with ICT stakeholders, made observations, studied Government publications and sourced information from the internet in order to find out the extent of broadband development in Ghana. A SWOT analysis is carried out to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat to the development of broadband market in Ghana. The facilitation, regulatory and market intervention policies recommended in the Ghana broadband policy is used to evaluate the broadband market to find out whether the strategy consolidates with the Strengths and opportunities of the market and whether it corrects the anomalies that necessitate the weaknesses and threats to the market. A comparative analysis is carried out with broadband strategies in other nations to consolidate the perceived omissions in the Ghana broadband Strategy.

In our findings, the researchers saw the Ghana broadband Strategy to be a positive start towards developing a comprehensive broadband strategy for Ghana. The strategy did address some threats and weaknesses of the broadband market. It also consolidated on some strengths and opportunities of the broadband market. The researchers also discovered that a market can actually grow without a policy. But a market will grow faster if a well implemented policy is guiding the market.

It is the hope of the researchers that this academic exercise will be useful to anyone who wishes to study the policy effect on the Ghanaian telecommunications market and the Ghanaian approach to Universal Access and Service.