The first phase (Phase One), deployed in 2007 is fully operational and serving part of the southern sector of Ghana (Greater Accra, Central, Western, Eastern, Volta and Ashanti Regions). The second phase (Phase Two), which is an expansion of the project, will cover the northern part of Ghana (Upper East, Upper West, Brong Ahafo and Northern Regions). In addition, phase one will be expanded.
Phase one provided a capacity of fifty thousand (50,000) with seventy-two (72) Base Transceiver Stations (BTS). Phase two will increase capacity to two hun- dred thousand (200,000), running on a system that can serve up to three million (3,000,000) users.
This project is expected to be com- pleted within eighteen (18) months of commencement. When completed and fully functional, the system will have a country-wide coverage including the following attributes:
Network equipment
The cost of network equipment, excluding terminals, changed from US$15,219,922.00 to US$62,833,723.00. The reasons include:
i. The previous design for Phase II included 70 base stations equip- ment to provide coverage for some parts of the northern sector of the country. This number is however woefully inadequate if the system is to attain total national coverage as projected. Thus, 270 BTS equipment (about four times that of the previous design) is provided for in the new design.
ii. The base station equipment pro- posed in the new solution is state- of- the- art, more advanced, efficient and future oriented.
iii. To guarantee the security, reli- ability and performance of the network, total network redun- dancy has been employed in the core network; meaning that the same equipment have been deployed in both Accra, Kumasi and Tamale switch centres and inter-linked; so that should one switch centre fail, the other takes over full control of the whole network. This was non-existent in the previous design as no core network equipment was included in the costing for Phase II. This additional equipment amounts to more than doubling of the previous core network.
iv. The previous design catered for only voice and low rate (1X) data at 15.3 kbps per carrier. The new design introduces the EVDO Rev B platform which boosts data transmission up to 4.9 Mbps per carrier, over 30 times that of the old design. This facility provides for all the new equipment as well as those at the existing sites.
v. The new design introduces larger
capacity, more robust and mod- ern configuration of transmission equipment to enable the system support the high data rates to be transmitted using the EVDO and other surveillance systems.
Other equipment
New advanced equipment and services which in addition to the network that have been provided for the new solution are as follows:
i. LTE (Long Term Evolution) system at the cost of US$6,491,563.00, comprising a core part and radio sites has been introduced in the new solution to provide high speed data service. LTE solution is the 4 generation technology with latest technical parameters. In the new design, dual mode radio base stations with high data performance will be used.
ii. Remote monitoring of the exter-
nal alarm system at the cost of US$3,383,058.00 has also been introduced to provide real time alarm management in order to secure the stability and perfor- mance of whole network. With this system, the technicians could monitor the whole network, in- cluding core equip-ment rooms, remote radio sites and transmis- sion platforms from a location in Accra. This will reduce the huge cost of monitoring the whole network.
iii. An international gateway at the cost of US$2,603,323.00 has also been introduced to enable direct communication between Govern-ment and the various consulates and foreign branch offices outside Ghana without going through the commercial
