Ghana’s telecoms regulator the National Communications Authority (NCA) has made public that going forward, it will not issue any new operating licences to new players, the Business Guide reports.

NCA director general Bernard Forson made the announcement to parliament last week, during a Public Accounts Committee scrutiny into the regulator’s audited report for 2005. Explaining the decision, Forson said that the country’s limited spectrum resources had already been allocated to the country’s six incumbent mobile operators, and therefore there was no room for market entrants.

Although Glo Mobile has yet to launch its operation, the other licensed cellcos - MTN, Vodafone, Zain, Tigo and Kasapa – are said to be ‘competing fervently for customers’. Despite the apparent lockdown, the director general did say that there was room for new companies wishing to offer data-only services which, Forson noted, would help to drive up the proliferation of the internet in Ghana.