Ben Uzor Jr
Going by the increasing number of submarine cable systems on the Nigerian coastline, telecommunications subscribers in the country may soon pay less for international calls. Though Nigeria’s internet penetration is still in its lowest ebb, the much anticipated commencement of operations by Main One submarine cable next month would, indeed, crash the cost of internet access, bringing about the desirable digital revolution that the country has been yearning for.
Industry watchers say that the system would also contribute to an immediate 50 percent drop in the price of bandwidth in Nigeria and Ghana, and continued price reduction was anticipated over time. BusinessDay gathered that GSM operator, MTN Nigeria, is the largest single user of bandwidth in the country. As at today, the company’s bandwidth demand is put at 2 SPMs.
Also, other telecom operators, internet service providers (ISPs), and financial institutions use varying amount of the remaining bandwidth to provide services to the end users. Industry analysts say that SPM is expected to increase tremendously, when other cable initiatives such as the Glo 1 Cable, ACE Cable, and the West African Cable System (WACS) come on stream.
As it stands today, the Main One Cable appears set for business with the completion of the sea cable connectivity from Portugal across West Africa, and terminating in Lagos. The company announced that it will launch its high capacity fibre-optic cable system on July 1, in Ghana and Nigeria.
Moreover, the cable infrastructure will deliver 1.92Tbps of high capacity bandwidth - equivalent to ten times the available capacity of the existing fibre optic cable serving West Africa, and more than 20 times the satellite capacity currently available across sub-Saharan Africa. With this, the stranglehold that Nigeria has enjoyed in internet bandwidth will soon be over. But more importantly, it would usher in the necessary price correction in bandwidth cost, and increase reliability with the obvious redundancy.
According to them, the considerable increase in available bandwidth from the Main One Cable will provide telecommunications operators and financial institutions with the additional capacity they require to expand networks and mobilise a broader range of services.
BusinessDay gathered that Main One was on the verge of completing formalities that would herald the commencement of Phase 2 of the project, which will witness an extension of the cable to South Africa. In addition, it was learnt that the company has built an extensive terrestrial fibre-optic last mile network spanning 26km from the cable landing station in Oponbo, to a point of presence in Saka Tinubu, Lagos. This was strategically designed to ease access to customers and ensure high availability of service.
Funke Opeke, chief executive officer, Main One, who spoke to BusinessDay in an interview recently, observed that the actual submarine cable was installed, further adding that testing and commissioning had begun. “The cable would be ready for service by the end of the month. We have selected July 1, 2010 as our ready for service date”, she stated.
Commenting on what would give Main One cable competitive edge over other cables expected to hit the Nigerian shores, Opeke revealed: “We are open access which makes a lot of our operators’ customers feel comfortable. We provide services to all operators; we are not a retail operator, we only do business on a wholesale basis. So, we are not competing with them, it’s shared infrastructure. Our objective is to deliver superior value to them at a reduced cost in an open pricing scheme. You get a higher discount if you buy more volume or if you subscribe for a longer period. So, no operator is treated unfairly. They can truly focus on just acquiring the capacity and then concentrating on their business and service to the retail customers.’’
“So, we think that makes operators comfortable in working with us. Our focus is delivering them high value on our cable, and not focusing on other retail businesses or other sectors in which we are participating. We think the service focus, value focus, and open access model clearly differentiates us. The open access says we will not compete with operators, and our objective is to reduce our cost, increase the value so that they can be successful in their business”, she posited.
In the same vein, Jonny Coleman, head, network planning and implementation, Main One Cable Company, said: “We are working very closely with our customers as well on the last mile deployment. In Nigeria, we have built an extensive fibre-optic terrestrial last mile network, about 26 km from our cable landing station in Oponbo to a point of presence in Saka Tinubu, to ease access to customers. Infrastructure deployment costs are pretty high, so you can appreciate the level of investment we put into this network. It is supposed to be a redundant network. All these are in place and have been tested, with a target date of end of June and a commercial launch date of July 1.’’
No comments:
Post a Comment