[AfrICANN-discuss] Nigeria: Broadband Penetration - Where Are the Submarine Cables?

Wed Jul 21 00:09:33 SAST 2010

Another "After all been said" without the DONE part. Hmmm...We will get
there one day...thanks for sharing this.

Regards

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 2:35 PM, Mamadou LO <alfamamadou at hotmail.com> wrote:

>  Nigeria: Broadband Penetration - Where Are the Submarine Cables?
>
> Emma Okonji
>
> 19 July 2010
> ------------------------------
>  Nigerians had long been hoping on broadband explosion and penetration in
> the country, but such hope appears too far from reality, despite promises
> made by Glo 1, MainOne, and MTN WACS.
> If their promises were backed with commitments, by now, several home and
> offices in both urban and rural centres would have been connected to the
> Internet at very cheap rates, as promised by the trio.
> But the reverse is the case, where only the well-to-do Nigerians pay
> through their nose to get connected to the internet whose browsing speed is
> as slow as the speed of a snail.
> Globacom, on September 7, 2009, took Nigerian journalists to witness the
> historic landing of its submarine cable on the shores of Lagos. Shortly
> after it landed, Globacom promised Nigerians that in few months from that
> day, it would come up with a commercial launch of its submarine cable, where
> all Nigerians would be connected to high speed internet browsing, including
> video and voice at affordable rates.
> In the same way, MainOne told Nigerians at various fora in Lagos and Abuja
> that the company had completed the landing process of its submarine cable,
> and that it would land the shores of Nigeria on June 30, 2010, and would
> commence commercial rollout on July 1, 2010. Believing the words of its
> Chief Executive Officer, Mrs. Funke Opeke, some telecom operators hurriedly
> went ahead of the July launch date, to pay for capacities in advance.
> The month of July has almost come to an end, yet no sign that MainOne is
> ready to rollout commercially as earlier promised.
> However, Opeke, in a statement, said the MainOne Cable project went live on
> July 1, 2010 as promised.
> According to her "for a simple cable, we are extremely competitive, we have
> the latest technology. It would provide on day one 1.92 terabits per second,
> it has the capacity to do that. And, we believe that we will be able to
> install 40 gigabit wave length system which is the next upgrade on this same
> cable system and get significant improvement beyond the 1.92 terabit through
> the life cycle of the cable. It is state of the art; it is what you will
> find in other markets."
> MTN, in December 2009, told Nigerians that it was coming with the West
> African Cable System (WACS), a high capacity submarine cable system linking
> Europe, West Africa and South Africa, with over 3.8 terabytes per second
> (Tbps), covering a distance of over 14,000 kilometres from United Kingdom,
> Portugal, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, DRC, Angola,
> Namibia and South Africa. Addressing the media in December 2009, MTN's
> Corporate Services Executive, Mr. Wale Goodluck, explained that the MTN WACS
> would be ready for commercial launch in December 2010, and that the Nigeria
> cable landing station would be built, developed, operated and managed by MTN
> Nigeria. December is just around the corner, and there are no signs that the
> date is feasible.
> Going by the unfulfilled promises, it does appear that the submarine cable
> project is bigger, with more financial backup than it is currently being
> portrayed by the trio.
> Explaining an expert view on the situation, President of Nigeria Internet
> Group (NIG), Mr. Lanre Ajayi, said he was confident that the three operators
> were capable of rollout submarine cable services.
> According to him, "landing the submarine cable and rolling out services are
> not difficult task that could not be accomplished by the operators." He gave
> example with East African countries where submarine cables were landed
> successfully and are currently operational. He however said that the
> difference between the management of submarine cable projects in Eastern
> Africa and that of Nigeria was the fact that submarine cables were handled
> and managed by consortium of firms in Eastern Africa, while in Nigeria, most
> of the planned submarine cables are being managed by individuals and single
> operators.
> Addressing a press conference shortly after the landing of Glo1 in Alpha
> Beach in Lagos, Executive Director in charge of Human Resources for
> Globacom, Mr. Adewale Sangowawa said it would likely commence commercial
> operation after the commercial launch in 6 weeks time.
> The 9, 800 kilometre state-of-the-art cable was embarked upon by Globacom
> in 2007. The cable landing which was witnessed by Journalists in Lagos was
> celebrated by Globacom and its technical partner, Alcatel Lucent.
> As soon as the landing process was completed, Alcatel Lucent officially
> handed the undersea cable to Globacom, from where it would be linked to the
> landing station, located few metres from the beach.
> According to Sangowawa, the Glo 1 submarine cable would enable Globacom
> have a clear distinction in providing quality services through multiple
> redundant and high quality direct links to various countries across the
> globe and would enable it to interconnect with several international
> networks and leading traffic carriers in the world.
> Glo 1, according to Sangowawa "complements its nationwide optic fibre
> cable, and will provide better alternative to bulk voice and data
> transmission requirements than satellite and microwave-based transmissions."
> He said Globacom had through the pioneering of telecom systems, underlined
> its resolve to continue to offer Nigerians world-class services.
> Listing the benefits of Glo 1 submarine cable, Glo 1 Project Manager, Mr.
> Kayode Odebiyi said the Glo 1 would provide connectivity from Lagos to Bude
> in the United Kingdom through fibre optic cable laid undersea and that the
> cable would offer sufficient capacity for traffic for the Globacom's mobile,
> fixed and internet telecommunication services. He said it would offer 99.9
> per cent up time reliability, world-class long distance voice, video and
> data communication services to the African customer.
> According to Opeke, "the successful completion of our shore-end cable
> laying operations in Lagos and Accra, again signposts the seriousness with
> which this project is being executed and our commitment to ensuring that we
> deliver on our target completion date of June 2010."
> WACS, which is a consortium of eleven operators from 9 Countries, including
> MTN, Portugal Telecom, Tata/Neotel, Telkom, Broadband Infraco, Vodacom,
> among others has a primary incentive to lower costs and improve in-country
> services. MTN said it has an open access policy that would allow all
> operators, including competitive Telcos to have access to it
> Listing its benefits, Wale Goodluck said WACS would eliminate monopolies
> and ensure unfettered access to capacity for all operators; facilitate
> telecom regulator's strategic objectives for Nigeria's telecom sector, and
> enable broadband revolution, especially local internet peering.
> He said it would increase Nigeria's ICT activities, decrease international
> bandwidth prices and increase consumer access to bandwidth dependent
> services.
> Nigerians are not unaware of all the listed benefits of broadband
> penetration through the various planned submarine cable, but their concern
> is how to see it operational as promised by Glo 1, MainOne and MTN WACS.
> They have therefore appealed to the operators concerned to always match word
> with action. It is no longer a thing of surprise when Chief Executive
> Officer of Eisalat, Steve Evans spoke publicly recently that Etisalat would
> not want to delve into such tasking project of submarine cable, but would
> rather buy capacity from any operator that was able to rollout commercially.
> Zain may have toed the line of Etisalat, as the company had since kept mum
> over the matter.
>
> Source : Daily Independent <http://www.independentngonline.com/> (Lagos)
>
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