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| FonTV rolls out in Ghana |
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| Posted on: 2008-May-15 Joy FM |
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Television viewing just got better in Ghana, with the launch Wednesday evening of Africa’s first mobile phone-enabled television content viewing service, FonTv.
Operators, Black Star Television, announced at an august gathering at the Accra International Conference Centre, venue of the launch, that the FonTv service is already deployed nationwide for full scale commercial operation after nearly a year of test transmission produced excellent results.
The service is said to employ the Terrestrial Digital Multimedia Broadcasting T-DMB technology, pioneered and developed in South Korea that enables crystal-clear images, as well as stable, non-fluctuating channel viewing of TV programmes on T-DMB phones, laptops, and other digital receivers. The phone device has its full functionalities too – call placing and reception, sms texting, e-mail and several other services that come with the phone device.
Mr. D.H. Kim, Managing Director of Black Star TV, said the company was happy to introduce the new service in Ghana as it seeks to penetrate the African market, explaining that the introduction of the ‘valuable service’ to offer an alternative to Ghanaian lifestyles was ample testimony of the company’s confidence in Ghana’s ICT sector and the great opportunities it offers.
The Deputy Director General of the National Communications Authority, NCA Mr. Joshua Peprah, who described the FonTv service as ‘innovative and interesting’, said the Ghana Government plans a common platform to promote its ICT agenda, including the full exploitation of digital media broadcasting and the NCA will continue its spectrum planning to ensure broadcasters by 2015, have opportunities to serve different markets with clarity, where one company can have a news channel, a sports channel, a movie channel and a music channel, among others.
“Spectrum planning by the NCA has made all this possible and we will continue to do this to make sure that the people of this country enjoy the full benefits of the developments in the ICT field including digital media products such as what we have seen today,” he said.
Mr. Yoofi Grant, Chairman of Onetouch (mobile telephone service provider from Ghana Telecom), collaborators of Black Star TV in bringing FonTv to Ghana, was happy a purely Ghanaian collaboration was yielding the unique result, stressing it is another first for Ghana.
He said the mobile phone has become indispensable and it is only natural that service providers provide more innovative products for consumers, adding that with the launch of the FonTv, people can now watch whatever their favourite programmes are virtually out of their pockets and announced Onetouch would provide two months’ free subscription for the first 1000 people to purchase the product.
The Korean Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Keyei Chul Wi, expressed the hope that the introduction of the new product would help position Ghana as a real force and leader in Africa’s ICT evolution and further strengthen the economic and political ties between Ghana and South Korea.
Deputy Minister for Communications, Mr. Fredrick Opare Ansah said the ministry was encouraged that the gradual improvement in the State’s communications infrastructure is now permitting the introduction of emerging value added services for the convenience of Ghanaians and commended the management of Black Star TV for expanding the frontiers of mobile communications in Ghana.
He said there is no doubt that the introduction of the service would open up new opportunities for Ghanaians; Ghanaian companies and technicians, advertisers and filmmakers among others involved in the production and distribution of ICT products and services.
The Attorney General who launched the FonTv, said the product exemplifies the often repeated catch phrase of the world being a Global Village and also a clear demonstration that the 21st Century is one of a digital age. He said from a modest figure of approximately 100,000 mobile phone subscribers in the year 2000, to the about seven million subscribers currently, the introduction of the FonTv will transform the enjoyment of entertainment and people-to-people interactions.
He said time and space are no longer the barriers to communication that they once were because “We are living in an era in which the world is witnessing the transformation of communication on a daily basis,” explaining that hardly a day goes by without the world realising a new form of development being announced.
Mr. Joe Ghartey said “In this golden age of business, which Government has worked tirelessly to develop and cultivate, we appreciate with a sense of national pride and admiration, the way in which innovative companies, such as Black Star TV, are flying Ghana’s flag of corporate achievement and entrepreneurship high.”
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