The Liberian Telecommunications Authority (LTA) announced on Monday that it has launched a nationwide initiative to rehabilitate and maintain rural base stations deployed under the Universal Access Fund (UAF) that have since been abandoned.
The initiative, first revealed in a Facebook post last Thursday, follows an assessment by LTA which found that of 12 UAF-supported base station sites deployed in remote areas, nine had been inactive for almost two years, depriving people in those areas of basic voice and data access.
According to news agency Ecofin, a statement from the UAF said the sites had been neglected by operators in favour of urban deployments that were more commercially viable, the report said.
“Like any commercial enterprise, telecommunications service providers have focused their operations and main investments on large urban areas, where they can maximize their profits,” the UAF statement said. “This has left many rural communities unserved or insufficiently served.”
The UAF added that the LTA doesn’t have the ability to force telcos to provide services in rural areas and other unprofitable locations, not least because telcos are already saddled with the expense of licences and spectrum usage, the report said.
The LTA said teams of government officials, telecoms technicians and engineers will carry out repairs on the sites, starting with Bomi, Gbarpolu and Grand Cape Mount counties.
However, the Ecofin report added, the initiative will also have to find ways to keep the sites maintained, particularly for things like supplying power for the sites and preventing infrastructure vandalism and theft.
According to a recent report from the GOGLA organization and supported of the World Bank, only 7.6% of Liberia’s rural population has access to electricity, the report said.
