Telcos provide zero rates for coronavirus educational sites — Comms Minister

The telecom companies have provided services for free for customers who browse educational sites and all websites for the Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Information, the Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful has revealed.

This, she noted at a press conference organised by the Information Ministry, forms part of efforts from the communication sector to assist in the fight against Covid-19.

“So if you go to the Ghana Health Service website, you are not using any data, if you seek information from the MOI website, you are not using any of your data. it has been zero-rated and it is for free,” the minister stated.

Additionally, the minister indicated that the telecom companies are also providing support with the national emergency numbers –112 and 311– and all the other emergency numbers that are being used by the Ghana Health Service to help the fight against the virus.

Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful further said noted that in order to reduce the pressure on network providers in the lock-down period, the President has directed the National Communications Authority to give more spectrum to telcos for free for three months, of which MTN and Vodafone have been beneficiaries.

“As you are all aware, data usage has also increased dramatically during this period of lock-down and there is congestion on all the networks and so the quality of telecom services to the general public has been affected by this. And so the President has directed that the NCA should give more spectrum to telcos during this period for free, and that has been done. Vodafone and MTN have been given the additional spectrum for three months and hopefully, that will help to reduce the pressure on their network,” she added.