It is not uncommon to see or hear Ghanaians frustrated or complaining about poor network or sluggish internet connectivity. For many years, frustrated Ghanaians have joked, complained, and resigned themselves to one familiar phrase whenever calls drop, videos buffer endlessly, or mobile data crawls at a snail’s pace, which is “the network is bad.”
Amid this frustration, tech analyst and IT consultant Barnabas Nii Laryea is of the view that the country’s persistent connectivity frustrations may no longer be simply about weak signals or too many users online.
He believes that the problem is increasingly within Ghana’s 5G rollout structure itself. Barnabas Nii Laryea points to the controversial decision to centralize Ghana’s 5G infrastructure rollout under NextGen Infraco, which is a private entity tasked with leading the deployment of the country’s next-generation network infrastructure.
For him, while policymakers envisioned the move as a faster and more coordinated pathway to digital transformation, the decision is rather unintentionally slowing competition, delaying deployment, and limiting the full benefits consumers expected from the 5G era.
Modern Phones, Old Infrastructure
One of the biggest ironies, analysts say, is that many Ghanaians today already carry smartphones capable of supporting ultra-fast 5G technology, yet continue to experience network performance tied largely to older infrastructure.
This practically means consumers may own devices designed for high-speed streaming, low-latency gaming, real-time cloud computing, and seamless video conferencing, but the networks supporting those devices are still heavily constrained by aging systems and limited 5G availability.
This digital mismatch can be described as modern gadgets operating on yesterday’s highways. According to Barnabas Nii Laryea, this explains why many consumers are struggling to reconcile the aggressive marketing around 5G with the daily reality of unstable calls, slow downloads, delayed uploads, and overcrowded mobile networks.
“Today, consumers are using next-generation smartphones and high-performance mobile devices capable of supporting advanced technologies. Yet many of these devices are still operating on older network infrastructure because Ghana’s 5G rollout was effectively centralized and bundled under a private entity: NextGen Infraco,” the tech analyst indicated.
Why 5G Matters Beyond Just Speed
The industry player stresses that a proper deployment of 5G is not merely about faster internet browsing. He reveals that a fully deployed and competitive 5G ecosystem will improve network stability, data capacity, congestion management, latency reduction, and overall service reliability.
A stronger 5G infrastructure properly deployed would allow networks to handle significantly larger volumes of traffic without deteriorating user experience.
For the everyday user, this will mean fewer dropped calls during peak periods, smoother streaming, faster mobile banking transactions, better online learning experiences, and improved productivity for businesses increasingly dependent on digital operations.
However, those gains depend heavily on broad deployment, rapid infrastructure expansion, and strong competition among telecom operators.
The Monopoly Issue
Barnabas Nii Laryea is convinced that Ghana’s centralized rollout model may be creating bottlenecks.
Unlike markets where multiple telecom companies independently deploy 5G infrastructure simultaneously, Ghana’s approach effectively places the backbone rollout under one private infrastructure entity.
The slow pace in the deployment, he argues, suggests that the company solely tasked with the deployment has limited execution capacity.
The centralized model of rollout, he maintains, has effects that ripple across the entire telecom ecosystem because operators depend on the same infrastructure pipeline to deliver advanced services to consumers.
A Bigger Question About Ghana’s Digital Future
The IT consultant is therefore championing a debate around Ghana’s 5G rollout, which ultimately raises a broader national question: should digital infrastructure be built around centralized control or open competition?
For him, without aggressive and competitive deployment and broader participation, Ghana risks entering a “5G era” in name while consumers continue living through a 4G experience strained by rising data demand.
Until the government addresses this policy question, millions of Ghanaians will continue to remain caught between advanced smartphones in their hands and sluggish connectivity in their daily lives.
