The "Space To Space" Phenomenon In Ghana
by David Ajao2005-07-03 00:00:00 | Viewed 3276 times
The history of digital mobile telephony in Ghana, is a long and windy one. The essence of this article however, is to take a close look at the current wave of road-side 'businesses' in Ghana, popularly referred to as: "Space to Space".
Here in Africa, not everyone can afford to buy a mobile phone and maintain it with enough credit, as the cellular operator would require. Many people rely on commercial phone operators where they can make phone calls and be billed per minute. Some people who have mobile phones still rely on these commercial phone operators for calls that would be terminated on other networks apart from their's, if they want to save cost, or when they are out of credit. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. The need to fill this gap is what has brought about the small businesses around Ghana, known as "Communication centres".
The emergence of this phenomenon known as "Space to Space" in Ghana, can be attributed to two reasons. Rise in the call tariffs on Ghana Telecom's network and the difficulty in reaching mobile phone lines from the land lines.
Scene one
Hitherto, these commercial phone operators in Ghana were dialling mobile lines from land lines. because it was cheaper for them to do so. They charged 1,500 cedis (about 0.17 USD) per minute. This was in 2002. The state-owned national operator, Ghana Telecom saw that it was being cheated, since the cellular operators were charging higher than it did. The company reacted by increasing the call tariffs for calls originating from its network and terminating on any of the mobile phone networks in Ghana. The commercial phone operators had to react by increasing their charges per minute to 2,500 cedis (about 0.27 USD). Not many Ghanaians could afford to pay so much for phone calls.
Scene two
Up on till mid-2004, calling from Ghana Telecom's network to Spacefon Areeba's network (the leading mobile phone network in Ghana) was hectic. A caller would have to dial over and over again and might be lucky enough to get connected at all. The reason attributed to this was that all the circuits connecting Ghana Telecom to Spacefon Areeba were all taken up during peak hours, leaving no free connection for any other call to be made. However, dialling within Spacefon's network was as smooth as butter, likewise other networks. This congestion was limited to 'GT land line - Spacefon' connection.
A GSM Desktop Phone
The two scenarios explained above necessitated the introduction of desktop phones and special tariffs targetted at commercial phone operators by Spacefon Areeba. The equipment was basically a GSM Desktop phone with could work with any GSM 900 / 1800 MHz network. These phones were christened "Space-to-Space machines" in Ghana, after the network operator that introduced them.
Spacefon Areeba's special tariff allowed the commercial phone operators to buy airtime in bulk and make calls at low rates. They were at liberty to mark-up their call rates, and make profit. Thus, call charges with these operators vary from 1,500 to 2,500 cedis. Calls to other networks vary from 2,500 cedis to 3,000 cedis while international calls vary from 5,000 to 6,000 cedis.
The sudden popularity of the "Space-to-Space" phenomenon was unprecedented. Going by the profit margin that could be made, many unemployed people quickly chanced on this opportunity to set up road-side "Communication centres" that was basically a huge umbrella, a table, a pair of chairs, the Desktop phone, and a book for keeping records. Today, any where you go in Ghana, especially the urban areas, you cannot miss the banners reading "SPACE TO SPACE c2,000".
Ghana Telecom's mobile phone subsidiary, OneTouch GSM, has also reacted to this, by launching its own offering. Details about this are not much as OneTouch hardly advertises it. The only thing known is that its service is known as One4ALL.
The author, David Ajao, is a web developer with Web4Africa.
Read more about GSM Desktop Phones.
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