[ 2016-11-12 ]

4 telcos to electronically transmit 2016 election results
Four mobile telephony companies have been
contracted by the Electoral Commission (EC) of
Ghana to electronically transmit (e-transmit) the
results of the 2016 general elections to the
national collation centre in Accra.

The four are Vodafone, MTN Ghana, TiGo and
Airtel.

The country has been divided into four zones, with
of the telephony company assigned to one zone to
operate from.

There are 275 constituencies in the country. The
57 constituencies in the Northern, Upper East and
Upper West Regions are clustered into one zone
while that of the 76 constituencies in the Ashanti
and Brong Ahafo Regions have also in one zone.

Volta and Eastern Regions are also in another zone
with their 59 constituencies while Greater Accra,
Western and Central Regions with 83 constituencies
are also in one zone.

The telcos are to set up a Virtual Private Network
(VPN) infrastructure to link the 275 constituency
collation centers to the national collation centre
in Accra.

The national collation centre is where the
presidential results from all the 29,000 polling
stations across the country will be tallied and
winner declared.

The offices of the EC from district level through
to regional to national headquarters,
Kasapafonline.com understands, have their own
internal communications network (WAN), consisting
of VSAT nodes, which is provided by the STL, an
Israeli padlock coy that has diversified its
operations and now supplying election related
materials to the EC of Ghana.

The Daily Statesman Friday reported that the
tender document for this e-transmission contract
made it absolutely clear that the VPN service
provider should operate “independent from the EC
WAN.”

STL, the paper added, was categorical that it
wanted nothing to do with results transmission.

The padlock coy’s mandate is to supply the
Biometric Verification Devices used for voter
verification on Election Day.

The e-transmission is such that the Returning
Officer at the national collation centre should be
able to retrieve a two megabytes file in less than
a second.

All the 276 CPES are expected to be installed and
operational by the end of November for training of
technicians to take place.

The VPN, the Daily Statesman further reported, is
expected to be commissioned three days before the
election date (December 7) after internal stress
tests have been done by end of November.

Source - Kasapafm

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