Camtel, Cameroon’s national telecoms provider, has entered a five-year partnership with the Ministry of Public Health to enhance connectivity across the country’s healthcare system.
The agreement is set to strengthen Cameroon’s digital health strategy and support the rollout of its universal health care programme. Under the deal, Camtel will provide secure internet access, interconnect health sites, and deliver mobile and fixed telephony services alongside data security solutions.
Camtel will also play a key role in helping the ministry define its annual technical requirements, ensure remote supervision of services, and deploy effective monitoring tools.
In addition, Camtel will offer training to health workers to ensure full use of the digital resources and will maintain a focus on service quality.
“Camtel will continue to offer innovative solutions to state structures in a bid to support them in their digital transformation journeys,” said Judith Yah Sunday Achidi, General Manager of Camtel.
Mozambique has launched a rural connectivity pilot project to expand internet access to underserved areas, marking a significant move toward universal digital inclusion. Led by the Communications Regulatory Authority (INCM) in partnership with BDQ Mobile, Movitel, VANU, and Spacecom, the project is part of the government’s broader “Internet for All” program.
Minister of Communications and Digital Transformation, Américo Muchanga, hailed the initiative as “a giant leap forward” in guaranteeing every citizen’s right to communicate in the digital age. The pilot aims to deliver affordable, high-quality internet to remote communities, often overlooked due to lack of commercial viability.
Two base stations have been installed in Xinavane and Pessene in Maputo Province, each with a 50-kilometre coverage radius, potentially serving up to 15,000 people. The goal is to reach 95% network coverage, 99% service availability, and 80% mobile penetration by 2030, with targeted 5G speeds of up to 1 Gbps.
While only 6.45% of Mozambicans currently use the internet (per January 2025 DataReportal figures), the initiative also includes digital skills training to ensure effective adoption and access to services in education, health, governance, and economic development.
This pilot marks a crucial step toward closing Mozambique’s digital divide and achieving inclusive national connectivity.
Source: extensia.tech Original Source: Agency Ecofin
MTN Group President and CEO, Ralph Mupita, recently paid a courtesy visit to Hon. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of ICT and Innovation, during a working trip to Kigali. The visit included engagements with the leadership of MTN Rwandacell PLC and Mobile Money Rwanda.
Their discussions focused on developments in the ICT sector, particularly reflections on the AI Africa Summit held in Kigali in April 2025. The summit underscored the continent’s determination to play a leading role in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Mr. Mupita, who was recently appointed Deputy Chairperson of the GSMA (serving through 2026), reiterated MTN Group’s full support for MWC Africa 2025, also scheduled for Kigali. The event is a key platform uniting policymakers, operators, and innovators to drive inclusive and sustainable digital transformation across the continent.
MTN continues to champion Africa’s digital future through investments in connectivity, strategic partnerships, and leveraging AI-driven solutions to boost socio-economic development.
Source: extensia.tech Original Source: TechAfrica News
Accra, Ghana – Ghana recorded 5,600 incidents of fibre optic cable cuts in 2024, resulting in an estimated financial loss of US$9.2 million (over GH¢138 million) to the telecommunications industry, according to Dr. Kenneth Ashigbey, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunications.
Dr. Ashigbey made the disclosure at the 24th edition of the Chamber’s Knowledge Forum, held in Accra under the theme “Leveraging Fibre for Accelerated Development.” The event was attended by key industry stakeholders, including the Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA) and representatives from various telecom operators.
A key highlight of the forum was the launch of the Telecommunications Industry Optic Fibre Minimum Specifications and Standards Manual, aimed at harmonising the deployment of fibre optic infrastructure nationwide.
In his address, Dr. Ashigbey underscored the far-reaching consequences of the rampant fibre cuts, noting that beyond the direct financial burden, the damage had severe implications for service delivery, business continuity, and public trust. He revealed that the cumulative time spent restoring these damages in 2024 exceeded 432 days.
“The average cost per fibre cut stood at approximately US$23,000, and in many instances, these cuts occurred repeatedly in the same locations, compounding the disruption,” he stated.
He stressed that the losses affected not only telecom companies but also small businesses, banks, emergency response services, and digital education delivery.
Causes of Fibre Cuts
Dr. Ashigbey identified road construction activities as the leading cause, responsible for 20.68% of all cuts. Other contributing factors included:
Theft and vandalism (13.98%), often due to the mistaken belief that fibre cables contain copper
Activities by private developers
Drain construction, farming, flooding, and fire
Accidental damage by other utility companies such as Ghana Water and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)
He emphasized the vulnerability of Ghana’s digital backbone and called for a coordinated national response to protect it.
Call to Action
While acknowledging ongoing support from the NCA, Cyber Security Authority, and the Ministry of Communications, Digitalisation and Innovation, Dr. Ashigbey urged deeper collaboration with road agencies, utility service providers, and local assemblies.
He proposed several measures, including:
Mandatory relocation of telecom infrastructure in new road construction projects
Strict enforcement of excavation permit regulations
Creation of dedicated utility coordination units within infrastructure agencies
“We must treat telecom infrastructure as critical national infrastructure. Every dollar spent on repairing fibre cuts could be used to expand connectivity to underserved communities,” he added.
Dr. Ashigbey concluded by appealing to the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation to champion legislation consolidating existing frameworks to safeguard telecom infrastructure. He also called on the Ministers for the Interior and Attorney General to support enforcement efforts against those responsible for damaging the network.
Huawei Nigeria has inaugurated a state-of-the-art Innovation Centre in Lagos, aimed at accelerating Nigeria’s digital transformation and fostering local tech development. The launch was held during Huawei Day Nigeria 2025, a three-day event themed “Accelerating Industrial Intelligence.”
Key dignitaries in attendance included Dr. Bosun Tijani, Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy; Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos State Deputy Governor representing Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu; and several Huawei executives.
Chris Lu, CEO of Huawei Nigeria, described the new centre as a collaborative hub for customers, partners, and ICT talent to engage with cutting-edge technologies and co-create industry-specific solutions. “AI is not a technology of the future—it is now,” Lu remarked, positioning the centre as a driver of industrial intelligence and innovation in Nigeria.
Minister Tijani praised the initiative as a move towards Nigeria’s tech sovereignty, highlighting its potential to promote local co-creation over mere technology consumption. Deputy Governor Hamzat also commended Huawei’s role in enhancing data sovereignty through localized cloud solutions and strengthening the state’s ICT infrastructure.
Huawei, which has been present in Nigeria since 1999, reaffirmed its long-term commitment to advancing the nation’s digital ecosystem.
Source: Extensia.tech | Original reporting by IT Web
Helios Towers is capitalizing on the explosive demand for mobile data services across Africa and the Middle East, with a sharpened focus on improving its tenancy ratio and maximizing infrastructure utilization.
According to CEO Tom Greenwood, the company’s operations in nine high-growth markets—eight in Africa and one in the Middle East—are benefiting from mobile penetration rates that still lag behind Europe, offering significant room for expansion. While mobile phone usage in Europe averages 90%, it hovers around 50% across Africa. Subscriber growth is at about 5% annually, with data consumption projected to quadruple over the next five years in the region.
“Our business is driven by structural growth,” Greenwood explained. “As data usage increases, so does the need for mobile infrastructure.”
Helios currently operates 14,417 sites across Congo Brazzaville, DRC, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Oman. Its average tenancy ratio has increased to 2.09 tenants per site, and the company is on track to meet its 2.2x target by 2026. Revenue for Q1 2025 rose 5% to $203.8 million, with adjusted EBITDA up 9% to $111.1 million.
Greenwood emphasized that Helios is committed to organic growth, with no plans for new market entries or M&A at this time. “There’s so much demand where we are now, that’s keeping us busy.”
Helios forecasts 2,000–2,500 tenancy additions in 2025, with full-year adjusted EBITDA of $460–$470 million, and capex of $150–$180 million. The towerco is also backed by $5.3 billion in contracted revenues, 99% of which comes from multinational mobile network operators.
Source: Anne Morris, Contributing Editor, Light Reading – lightreading.com
MTN Ghana, in partnership with the University of Ghana’s Faculty of Agriculture and smart agronomic solutions provider Defarmercist, has launched a GH¢3 million Vegetable Centre of Excellence at the University of Ghana Farms, Legon. The initiative aims to empower Ghanaian youth with practical agricultural skills and reduce unemployment through vocational training in modern agribusiness.
The pilot phase of the project will train at least 300 young people over the next two years, offering both theoretical and hands-on instruction in greenhouse farming, crop production, marketing, and agribusiness management. Graduates will also receive support in accessing land, farming tools, and market linkages to establish their own ventures.
Speaking at the launch, Adwoa Wiafe, MTN Ghana’s Chief Corporate Services and Sustainability Officer, emphasized the initiative’s role in making agriculture appealing, practical, and profitable. “This is a homegrown initiative—from training to production—and it’s aimed at creating real, lasting impact,” she said.
Charles Agyeman, General Manager of Defarmercist, noted the program’s practical, two-phase design, integrating best practices from countries like Israel and the Netherlands to ensure that graduates are business-ready.
Professor Eric Nartey, Dean of Agriculture at the University of Ghana, praised the initiative and called for more investments in smart classrooms to extend training to underserved communities.
The Centre is expected to strengthen Ghana’s local agricultural ecosystem, reduce dependence on imports, and create sustainable opportunities for youth in agribusiness.
Broadspectrum Group Limited (BSL) paid a courtesy visit to the Director General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Rev. Ing. Edmund Yirenkyi Fianko, at the NCA Tower in Accra. The visit was to congratulate him on his appointment and introduce BSL’s leadership and operations.
Led by Mr. Samuel Osew-Kwatia, the BSL delegation highlighted the company’s infrastructure footprint and its role in enhancing connectivity across Ghana. A key issue raised was the growing problem of fibre cuts, which continue to disrupt service delivery nationwide.
BSL appealed for stronger regulatory collaboration to address these challenges and protect critical digital infrastructure.
Rev. Ing. Fianko thanked the company for the engagement and acknowledged its contributions as a thriving indigenous enterprise. He reaffirmed the NCA’s commitment to supporting local businesses and working together to advance Ghana’s digital transformation.
Source: National Communications Authority (NCA), www.nca.org.gh
CSquared and CSquared Woezon, through a strategic partnership with Phase3 and SBIN, today announces a new terrestrial fibre route from Lagos, Nigeria to Accra, Ghana, setting a new standard for regional connectivity.
Achieving latency of just 11ms between Lagos and Accra, this terrestrial route will ensure faster, more resilient data delivery for content, cloud, and communication services – a significant milestone in West Africa’s digital infrastructure resilience.
This initiative responds directly to the vulnerabilities exposed in March 2024, when a rockfall off the West African coast damaged multiple subsea cables, causing widespread connectivity outages across the region, where to date no terrestrial solutions have been available to provide alternate restoration options in many parts of West Africa.
“We’re proud to partner to extend our existing high-capacity terrestrial infrastructure beyond Ghana and Togo” said Ian Paterson, CEO of CSquared. “This project proves what’s possible when regional infrastructure providers come together to build for scale, speed, and redundancy. It’s a significant step toward a digitally connected West Africa.
Our unique footprint in West Africa including our existing CSquared Woezon and CSquared Ghana operations are now integrated into a broader ECOWAS terrestrial solution to help drive digitalisation across the region.”
The new route forms the cornerstone of a broader East-West terrestrial strategy, offering reliable inland capacity for those 300 million people affected by the subsea failures. This route provides a resilient, high-performance alternative to subsea-only infrastructure enabling digital access for governments, enterprises, and citizens alike.
“This route reinforces our commitment to building a truly resilient and secure digital backbone across West Africa,” said Stanley Jegede, Executive Chairman of Phase3. “The events of March 2024 made it clear that Hyperscalers, CDNs, and operators alike require redundancy on land, not just undersea. With this new terrestrial link, Lagos’ digital ecosystem can be future-proofed, and ensure no nation east of Côte d’Ivoire is digitally isolated again.”
The successful configuration, activation and testing of this route was made possible by close collaboration with regional infrastructure partners Phase3 and SBIN, ensuring robust fibre deployment through Ghana, Togo, and Benin.
“This collaboration between multiple partners offers strategic network resilience for the entire region,” added Craig Lowe, Chief Growth Officer at Phase3. “Subsea cables are vital, but diverse terrestrial paths are non-negotiable for today’s cloud-first, latency-sensitive ecosystem. This route will become the primary inland path from Nigeria to Accra, enabling redundant pathways for critical content delivery and cloud traffic.”
“SBIN is committed to enabling cross-border fibre networks that support growth across West Africa,” said Ormar Gueye Ndiaye, CEO of SBIN. “Our collaboration ensures Benin plays a key role in regional fibre resilience and helps position our national infrastructure as a gateway for high-speed, reliable data transmission.”
The partnership is a key step in achieving CSquared’s strategy of integrating the digital infrastructure of critical West African economies and leveraging its existing infrastructure, both terrestrial and through the Equiano cable system, with robust and resilient solutions.
The Ready for Service (RFS) date and commercials will be announced in due course; however, it is a key building block in extending fibre reach across ECOWAS.
While this route reaffirms our collective role as pan-African digital infrastructure leaders, it sets a new benchmark for terrestrial connectivity in West Africa and underlines the importance of regional partnerships in achieving new levels of resilience.
About CSquared and CSquared Woezon
CSquared is a pan-African technology company, committed to a digitally connected Africa by making impactful investments into open-access broadband enabling infrastructure throughout Africa. CSquared provides wholesale broadband infrastructure and enables hyperscalers, mobile/fixed network operators and internet service providers to deliver high-quality broadband access to businesses and consumers on the continent. With a mission to improve access to the Internet and drive economic growth, CSquared invests in, builds and operates reliable and resilient last mile and metropolitan fiber optic networks, national fiber backbone infrastructure and subsea solutions in Africa’s largest and most dynamic economies.
Formed in 2022, CSquared Woezon is a joint venture between CSquared and the Société des Infrastructures Numériques (SIN). This public-private partnership forms a key component of Togo’s ambitious digital agenda, aiming to enhance connectivity and drive socio-economic development. In addition to metro and backbone terrestrial solutions, CSquared Woezon is the landing partner for the Equiano cable system in Togo, the first landing of the system in continental Africa.
About Phase3
Phase3 is a licensed telecommunications operator with expansion into the ECOWAS region. Headquartered in Abuja, Phase3 supports financial services, cloud computing, media streaming, and mission-critical enterprise workloads, while enabling governments and institutions to access secure, high-speed digital infrastructure.
Phase3 is committed to enhancing the availability of fast and reliable internet to the un-served and the under-served parts of the region. Voted “National Fiber Infrastructure Provider of the Year” for three consecutive years by prestigious industry analysts and watchers, Phase3’s on-going huge expansion projects are set to deliver additional fibre infrastructure in 2025 and beyond.
About SBIN
Société Béninoise d’Infrastructures Numériques (SBIN) is Benin’s national digital infrastructure operator, dedicated to expanding broadband access and supporting the country’s digital transformation. It manages a national fibre backbone and delivers fixed, mobile (under the Celtiis brand), and internet services to citizens, businesses, and government entities. SBIN plays a strategic role in regional connectivity by extending fibre networks across West Africa and positioning Benin as a key ECOWAS hub. Its major initiatives include the Celtiis network launch and broadband rollout to underserved areas.
The Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) has embarked on a drive to renovate and equip all its Community Information Centres (CICs) across the country.
The move is to support the one million coders’ initiative, particularly in rural communities.
The GIFEC Administrator, Dr Sofo Tanko Rashid Computer, who disclosed this in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said the agency which is under the Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation would use its CICs to deliver ICT training to rural areas to support the initiative.
Tour
To operationalise the CICs, Dr Computer said he recently embarked on a tour of eight regions to assess the state of the centres.
The regions he visited are Volta, Oti, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah, Bono East, and Bono.
“We found that most of the CICs have been ran down, taken over by other agencies, or locked down since 2017,” he said.
“It was an eyesore what I saw,” he said, adding “some have been used by agencies like the military as a post for their men. Others have been taken over by other agencies.”
In regions such as Volta, Oti, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah, Bono East, and Bono, Dr Computer said he witnessed firsthand the neglect and disrepair of these centres.
“Some of these centres lacked electricity, while others had essential equipment stolen or packed away unused,” he said.
Assurance
In spite of these challenges, Dr Computer said the GIFEC was committed to renovating and equipping those centres to facilitate effective ICT training.
“Without the CICs, this issue of digitalisation will be something in the mouth and the head,” Dr Computer stated.
“We need to bring digitalisation to the doorstep of ordinary persons, especially rural folks,” he said.
“GIFEC plans to quickly renovate these centres and bring them back to life, supporting the government’s initiative to train one million coders and promoting digital inclusion across the country. With over 200 CICs across the country, GIFEC’s efforts will play a crucial role in bridging the rural-urban digital gap,” he said.
Background
President John Dramani Mahama last month launched the One Million Coders Programme, a national digital skills initiative aimed at training one million Ghanaians over the next four years in coding, cybersecurity, data analytics, and related fields.
Speaking at the launch of the initiative last Wednesday, Mr Mahama described the initiative as a core part of his government’s Reset Ghana agenda, intended to prepare the country for a more competitive role in the global digital economy. “This is not just a fulfilled campaign promise, it is a deliberate move towards building a knowledge-based economy where our people are able to create solutions, find jobs and compete globally.”
He said the programme would help address unemployment and open up opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship.
The programme’s modular training approach will be rolled out across Accra, Kumasi, Sunyani and Bolgatanga, with plans to activate community information centres nationwide to ensure rural inclusion.
The programme emerged as a key manifesto promise of the National Democratic Congress during the 2024 election campaigns, and has been adopted as a flagship initiative by the administration of President Mahama.
