The Ghana Telecoms Chamber (GTC) has confirmed that telecom fibre and cable cuts during road construction and other infrastructural development projects in country is hurting the business of telecom operators. Chief Executive of the Chamber, Kwaku Sakyi-Addo told Adom News that in recent times some telecom operators share space underground in laying their cables and fibre just as they do co-locations of antennae on telecom masts, so when a construction worker breaks into one hole with an excavator, it usually cuts more than just one fibre and that disrupts services to the customers of more than one operator. He noted that recently a particular operator’s fibre was cut at one point and that affected service to communities from Winneba in the Central Region all the way to Anyinam in the Eastern Region. Kwaku Sakyi-Addo was responding to complaints by MTN in an interaction with members of the Network of Communication Reporters (NCR) to the effect that telecom fibre and cable cuts by road construction workers were largely to blame for the disruptions such as call drops, calls not going through, speech mutation and other network services challenges. MTN had said that 80 to 90 per cent of its transmissions go through fibre and a cut in one fibre affected its network service greatly; moreover MTN said it had the capacity, technology and the infrastructure to provide the best quality of service (QoS) but the recent fibre cuts is giving its network a bad reputation in the eyes of customers. Earlier on, an official of Vodafone had told Adom News that Vodafone suffered even greater as both its landline cables, and fibre for broadband services were usually cut and in some instances stolen. Information available to Adom News also indicate that the telecoms operators spend at least $150,000 dollars a month to repair damaged fibres and cables because the road contractors whose workers cut the fibres refuse to bear the cost. But Kwaku Sakyi-Addo told Adom News the Chamber is facilitating cooperation between the telecoms operators, other utility service providers, road contractors, and the institutions in the roads sector to instill some sanity into road construction and how it relates to laying of cables, fibres and pipes. He noted that hitherto, road construction workers tend to ignore demarcations and sign posts indicating where telecoms and other utility cables and fibres are laid, adding that “the road sector workers also accuse the utility service providers including the telecoms operators of breaking newly constructed roads to lay their cables and pipes.” Mr. Sakyi-Addo said regular meetings are ongoing between the stakeholders to ensure an understanding of how each stakeholder could have their right of way without being a nuisance to the other. He said the stakeholders have agreed that they would all submit their planned projects for 2011/2012 to be used to plan how each stakeholder would go about their projects without disturbing others. Meanwhile the telecoms operators have, on the advice of the chamber, started logging all fibre cuts to make a case for why there is a need for the stakeholders to work together to prevent fibre cuts, as it could affect every stakeholder, including the very people who cut the fibre. Adom News is also reliably informed that there have been instances when utility service providers like water, electricity and the telecoms operators are required to relocate their pipes, cables, and fibres for road construction, and the cost for relocation of the water pipes and electricity cables is usually borne by the government or the road contractor, while that for telecoms fibre and cables is left for the operators to bare. The telecoms operators describe that arrangement as unfair and discriminatory because “all the utility services providers pay for the right of way to lay our cables and fibres and yet when it comes to relocation they discriminate against telecoms operators.” The operators have reported the matter to the government through the Ministry of Roads and Highways, and the Ministry is currently working on resolving that issue also.