NCR welcomes 4G LTE player Surfline
The Network of Communication Reporters (NCR) has welcomed the new entrant into the local telecoms market, Surfline Communications Limited, operators of the first 4G LTE network in the country.
In a statement jointly signed by the NCR President, Mr Charles Benoni Okine, and Head of Public Relations, Mr Samuel Dowuona, the group congratulated Surfline on its courage of launch a 4G LTE network in Ghana at a time 4G enabled devices are largely lacking and existing operators’ revenues are allegedly dwindling due to competition.
“But it is also refreshing to note that Surfline comes at a time when there is need for some fresh injection of quality of experience as subscribers of the services of the existing networks generally complain of poor quality of service and lower than expected customer experience,” the statement said.
The group noted that the superiority of the 4G LTE technology, which promised far better customer experience than its predecessor, 3G, gave Surfline an edge over others and for that matter, it would be expected to meet the expectations of Ghanaians for better service.
The NCR believes that in a global village where Ghanaian students, business people and citizens in general are competing for the same opportunities with their counterparts overseas, the best of data technology is key to how effectively Ghanaians can access existing opportunities.
“We acknowledge that the existing telcos and Internet Service providers (ISPs) have been very capable partners of business, students and people of all walks of life in their quest to access opportunities, and all types of content for academic, business and entertainment purposes. But on the back of a 4G LTE network, Surfline would be expected to deliver even better support for all these groups,” the statement said.
The NCR said it had taken note that Surfline had deployed 220 cell sites in close proximity to one another across Accra and Tema, acquired bandwidth from three fibre optics vendors and built a more than US$100million network in partnership with some of the best industry technology partners.
This, the NCR believes, should make the Surfline network robust enough to support and optimise its 4G LTE technology to the benefit of Ghanaians.
“While we welcome Surfline and expect that it will deliver on its brand promise, we trust that affordability will be its hallmark, particularly at this time when data services are increasingly becoming affordable across the world,” the NCR said.
The statement said the NCR was aware that Surfline and the two other Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) licensees have up to five years to cover 60 per cent of all district capitals in the country.