Coronavirus: Data, voice services up since ban on social gathering – MTN CEO

Telecommunications giant, MTN Ghana says that following the ban on all social and public gatherings by government, its data and voice services have witnessed a significant spike.

This follows the closure of universities, Senior High Schools, and basic schools along with some workers across the country being asked to work remotely from home to minimize the spread of the novel Coronavirus.

According to Selorm Adadevoh, Chief Executive of MTN Ghana, a lot more people are connecting online since most users, especially workers and students, have began to remotely work from home since the outbreak of the coronavirus in Ghana.

“So far, it’s been a gradual change and so today the biggest change we’ve seen are students who’ve now all moved home and are working remotely so we’ve seen a spike of that for different services, we’ve seen Facebook and Netflix traffic also increase significantly and these are some of the very high volumes that we see. We have also seen YouTube also increase and of course the educational sites as well,” Adadevoh said on Citi’s Breakfast Show on Monday, March 23.

“Every day there’s a change and it depends on what’s happening but somewhere between 15-20 percent will be a fair estimate of the increase so far across board,” he added.

Mr. Adadevoh, however, says that as an operator, the biggest challenge for now, will be how to continue to provide the right levels of capacity and service so that the experience for consumers does not deteriorate.

“This is what really our priority at the moment is to ensure that we can accommodate the spike so that people will continue to be productive even during these times where we have a major crisis,” he explained.

Meanwhile, MTN Ghana recently announced a ‘Y’ello’ care package, where customers could access a variety of online learning channels to support the home learning and entertainment needs of their children.

Ghana has so far recorded 24 cases of COVID-19 with one death, a Lebanese who resides in Kumasi.