The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC), an agency under the country’s ministry of communications, has selected OpenRAN provider Parallel Wireless to provide mobile telephony connectivity to underserved and unserved communities in Ghana.
There are about 1,020 communities in Ghana without mobile signals. Traditional 2G, 3G or 4G networks require expensive and bulky equipment to deploy and operate in these communities. These hardware-based networks are difficult and pricey to upgrade.
Parallel Wireless says it enables a shift to open, software-based, and virtualized OpenRAN network architectures to deliver scalable 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G software-based networks. These are, the company says, cost-effective to deploy and maintain and can deliver coverage and capacity to end users and businesses across the country. GIFEC is set to enable the deployment of some 2,000 OpenRAN sites.
The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) is a special fund set up by the government of Ghana under the country’s Electronic Communications Act 2008, designed to provide telecommunications and ICT services to unserved, underserved and deprived groups and communities in the country. GIFEC is a Universal Access Service Fund. The UASF is an institutional and funding instrument designed to achieve universal access through monies collected from identified communications service providers.
Parallel Wireless claims the industry’s only unified 5G/4G/3G/2G software-enabled OpenRAN solution. The company is engaged with more than 50 leading operators worldwide.
