Twenty years ago, mobile phones were not common in communities of Ghana, West Africa. If you wanted to communicate with your relatives in Ghana or abroad, you had to go to a communication center. Communication decades ago, was not easy as it is now.
Only telephones were common back in the day but even that, only a few households and offices had telephones for placing and receiving calls.
However, due to the advancement in technology in Africa, mobile phones and networks is very common and has become a necessity. People in my country including myself spend more on data than food in a day. The demand for internet data has spiraled upwardly over the years, and it is helping mobile networks like MTN, AirtelTigo, Glo, Vodafone, etc to make more revenue.
The leading telecommunication networks in Ghana are MTN, Vodafone, Glo and AirteTigo. Over the years , they have served us with mobile and internet services. Consequently, these telcos have also generated wealth by providing these services that we pay to consume.
The top telecommunication networks in Ghana currently are as follows:
1. MTN is the most used and popular mobile and internet service in Ghana at the moment. Actually, they have been the most used and popular for more than a decade. MTN is the second oldest mobile network in Ghana after Vodafone. MTN is good with making calls but due to their exorbitant internet data prices , majority of their customers buy more airtime from them than the internet data to surf the Internet. MTN mobile network also has an interesting feature they started which even gave them more customers over the other networks. They introduced mobile money services ten years ago and this service is one of the fastest and easiest way of sending and transferring money to people. As a result of its success,all the other networks including Vodafone, AirteTigo have also come up with their own versions of mobile money.
2. VODAFONE- is the first network introduced in Ghana through telephones years ago. I personally started using the Vodafone network in 2013 way back in the university campus when I was in level 200 studying Geography and Sociology. In 2013, Vodafone network introduced the ‘Vodafone Big’ specifically for tertiary students across the country including University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology among others. Vodafone Big was basically a data sim for browsing but one had the opportunity of using it to make a call as well. The introduction of Vodafone Big for the youth increased the customer base of Vodafone company. They are on top of their game and competes daily with MTN as the number one network in Ghana.
3. GLO – Everyone like this network because of its affordable data bundles. GLO entered the Ghanaian scene years ago with the aim of capturing the youth. As a result, they appointed several Ghanaian celebrities as ambassadors to reach out to the youth. Honestly, for a while, it worked for them two years later, they started loosing customers and consequently went dormant.
Until a year or two years ago, GLO rebranded and knowing they can never match up to MTN and Vodafone at the moment in terms of calling services, they have targeted bundles. GLO offers the cheapest data bundles and this has increased their customer base. Internet is very expensive in Ghana so if you are a network offering cheaper prices, definitely, everyone will turn to your corner especially at a time with a youth who uses more data more than anything.
4. AIRTELTIGO- is one of the mobile networks in Ghana. AirTelTigo use to be two separate networks called AirTel and Tigo. These major mobile networks recently merged and became one company.