The Broadband Communications Chamber (BCC) has launched the upcoming maiden Broadband Ghana Forum, as a first step towards helping to revamp the outdated National Broadband Policy and Implementation Strategy.

The forum, slated for November 30, 2017, will assemble industry players, policy makers and experts from their entire communications ecosystem to discuss ways of making the bringing five-year-old policy up to speed with current industry developments.

It would also seek ways and strategies for effective improvement of the broadband penetration and usage in line with government's digital inclusion agenda and the United Nations recommendations.

The forum, under the auspices of the Ministry of Communications, is themed, "Broadband: The Catalyst for Sustainable Socio-economic Development", and would have series of presentations from key personalities and organizations on the sub-theme ‘True Broadband and the Possibilities It Brings’.

Minister of Communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, observing the outdatedness of the national broadband policy, recently charged BBCC to initiate a national discourse towards the review of the policy to bring it up to speed with the times.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Broadband Communications Chamber (BCC), Elorm Gustav Tamakloe, told journalists that Ghana’s current Broadband Policy has failed to live up to expectation because it has been outpaced by industry developments.

“The Chamber believes that Ghana’s current 2012 Broadband Policy and Implementation Strategy has lost the fundamentals in turbo-charging our socio-economic future. It has lost the ability to meet the national Broadband needs and has not been able to deliver fast and affordable Broadband to Ghana,” he stated.

Gustav Tamakloe noted that the existing policy failed to adequately address very key industry issues such as 4G LTE, measurement of broadband penetration and other factors that would help investors to make informed decisions.

He also mentioned that the issue of uniformity, or lack of it, in the licensing regime would also feature strongly in the discourse at the one forum slated for the Coconut Groove Regency Hotel in Accra.

The BCC CEO said the forum would also emphasised the need for the deployment of Broadband infrastructure to be a top priority for policymakers so as to quicken the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Last year, the UN Broadband Commission in a report issued a challenge to policymakers, the private sector and other partners to make deployment of Broadband infrastructure a top priority in their strategies to accelerate global development and progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals," he said.

He noted whereas the UN report indicated how broadband is driving significant transformation in lots of sectors that are related to development such as health, food security, financial inclusion and education, it is disappointing that Ghana is still not utilizing it enough as a stimulant for socio-economic development.

“Sadly, Ghana is losing out. Ghana is being left behind. With approximately 9.9 million users, representing 34.7% of about 29 million population, we can either choose to continue to do nothing or we can seize the Broadband opportunity as a catalyst for Ghana’s sustainable socio-economic development,” he said.

Gustav Tamakloe is confident that the forum would set the tone for a proper, uniform, fair and more effective deployment of the country's broadband resources to enable the government to achieve nationwide digital inclusion and also attain the SDGs.