Nigeria: GSM firms sign up to Main One

Funke Opeke, Main One CEO.

Etisalat, MTN, and Starcomms are the three telecoms firms to have subscribed to a new undersea cable linking Nigeria and West Africa to Europe ...

, paving the way for a transformation in internet access via broadband services in Nigeria. This was disclosed by the Main One Cable Company yesterday

The fibre optic cable, which spans 7000KM and was built in partnership with U.S. firm Tyco, runs from Portugal to Nigeria and Ghana, and also branches out to Morocco, the Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast. Main One says the cable delivers over ten times the broadband capacity of the South Atlantic Terminal (SAT-3), Nigeria's sole existing undersea cable, and will enable service providers to offer cheaper and more reliable internet access.

Main One chief executive, Funke Opeke, while speaking to investors and telecoms executives at a launch ceremony in Lagos said, "Those pre-construction customers that have taken up our services to date are Etisalat, MTN and Starcomms,”.

Participants from Bangalore, London and Johannesburg took part in the launch using teleconferencing facilities (not previously possible in Nigeria) hosted by U.S. router maker Cisco Systems Inc, which is partnering with Main One to develop applications for the Nigerian market.

Steven Evans, chief executive of Etisalat Nigeria, confirmed that his firm was testing the cable and would go live on it within a day or two.
"We are working very hard at the moment to go live on the network, hopefully within the next 24-48 hours, so that we will be one of the first people to be having broadband on the main network in Nigeria," Evans said.

Main One's cable will close the technology gap between Nigeria and other parts of the world. The cable, which has a capacity of 1.92 terabits, can accommodate 1 million MP3 downloads and 100 million voice calls per second.