Telecel brings satellite-direct-to-standard phone to Ghana
Telecel Group has signed a commercial contract with leading satellite-direct-to-standard phone provider, Lynk Global, Inc. (Lynk), to bring Lynk’s services to Africa, particularly to the subscribers of Vodafone Ghana.
This is the second commercial contract Lynk has signed, and it will provide nationwide coverage to Ghana’s entire population, using its independently verified “cell-towers-in-space” connectivity.
The first contract was with Aliv in the Bahamas.
Lynk’s “cell-towers-in-space” will enable Telecel Group to offer ubiquitous geographic coverage to over the six million Vodafone Ghana subscribers and will be utilized to extend rural coverage, including Maritime Economic Zone, as a backup to ensure service resilience, continuity of IoT devices, and as a terrestrial tower replacement for underperforming towers.
CEO of Lynk, Charles Miller, said, “This agreement extends Lynk’s leadership in the satellite-direct-to-standard-phone category in Africa and is an important milestone as interest in the category continues to heat up.”
He said Lynk remains the only patented, proven and commercially-licensed company for satellite-direct-to-standard-phone technology anywhere in the world.
CEO of Vodafone Ghana, Patricia Obo-Nai said “We are excited at the possibilities this partnership brings to the country. It provides the unique opportunity to connect everyone everywhere and accelerates the benefits that connectivity offers in health, education, and job creation, especially for our women and youth.”
Telecel Group recently acquired Vodafone Ghana in an all-cash deal from the Vodafone Group, and has started delivering on a promise to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the network to bring the company to its past glory and to make it profitable.
Telecel Group intends to maximize the national roaming deal with market leader MTN Ghana to improve its nationwide coverage while investing to expand its tower spread to 2,000 over the short-term. It has recently extended the roaming deal with MTN in terms of the period and coverage area. This new contract with Lynk is yet another step in the direction of improving coverage and quality of service.
The company plans to go public in the next five years, and Vodafone Ghana, which is its biggest operation on the continent, will be key to that strategy, hence the plan to invest heavily in Ghana.
Techfocus24 can confirm that almost all the internal processes, in terms of the actual takeover of Vodafone Ghana by the Telecel Group, are done and the company is set to start rolling out new products and services to the Ghanaian public, beginning with the satellite to phone service.
