MTN Ghana has paid roughly US$100 million per spectrum block to secure 5G licences alongside Telecel, after Ghana's government scrapped a wholesale exclusivity deal with Next-Gen Infrastructure Company (NGIC) well before its 2034 expiry date.

Ghana's National Communications Authority ran the auction across the 700MHz, 2.3GHz and 3GHz bands. MTN Ghana acquired two blocks of 700MHz spectrum and three blocks in the 3GHz band, at approximately US$100 million per holding. The licences run for 15 years.

Telecel, which also won the right to offer 5G, plans to move quickly. CEO Moh Damush told Bloomberg: "We plan to launch the service in December this year on our own network."

Why did Ghana abandon the wholesale model?

The previous framework granted 5G exclusivity to NGIC, a joint venture between the Ghanaian government and several private partners. Those partners included Nokia, Reliance Industries' Radisys, Tech Mahindra, and local operators AT Ghana and Telecel itself.

The wholesale model was designed to replicate India's approach of delivering low-cost data through infrastructure sharing. It did not work as planned in Ghana. The government revoked the concession years ahead of its 2034 expiry date, citing the need to accelerate the deployment of high-speed connectivity, which had struggled under NGIC's stewardship.

When the revocation was announced, both MTN and Telecel confirmed they intended to bid for concessions — and now both have succeeded.

How far behind is Ghana's 5G rollout?

The numbers explain the government's impatience. Earlier this year Ghana had just 49 active 5G sites. That figure sits far below the government's target of 1,200 sites by 2027 — a gap of more than 1,150 base stations to close in under three years.

The government's expectation is that direct competition between providers will produce swifter deployments. Operators can leverage their existing infrastructure to begin offering 5G connectivity faster than a standalone wholesale venture building a shared network from scratch.

For MTN Ghana, the market leader, the spectrum purchase extends a commercial advantage it already holds in mobile services into the next technology generation. For Telecel, a December launch on its own network would mark a rapid conversion from licence award to commercial service — a tight, but stated, timeline.

What happens to NGIC?

The joint venture's future role remains unclear following the loss of its exclusivity. The companies behind it — Nokia, Radisys, Tech Mahindra and AT Ghana — invested in the venture on the premise of a concession running to 2034. The government's decision to revoke that concession early shifts the market back to a conventional facilities-based competition model, with operators building and running their own 5G networks.

The policy reversal is notable beyond Ghana. Several African markets have studied shared-infrastructure and wholesale models as a way to lower the cost of network deployment, borrowing logic from India's low-data-price economy. Ghana's experience — 49 live sites against a 1,200-site goal — will serve as a data point for regulators weighing similar structures elsewhere on the continent.

What comes next?

The immediate benchmark is Telecel's December launch target, which would give Ghana its first operator-built commercial 5G service. MTN Ghana's rollout plans and pricing have not been detailed in the licence announcement, but its larger spectrum holding — five blocks across two bands — positions it for broader coverage and capacity.

The harder test is the 2027 target of 1,200 active 5G sites. Meeting it requires both operators to deploy at a pace Ghana has not yet demonstrated, now with their own capital and their own networks rather than a shared wholesale vehicle.