Ben Uzor Jr
MainOne Cable Company has plugged into West Africa’s
internet highway with the goal of providing seamless integration of businesses
with offices in Nigeria and Ghana, thereby promoting trade relations and
boosting economic growth of the sub-region. Speaking at the Ghana-Nigeria
Business Sector conference in Lagos, weekend, Funke Opeke, chief executive
officer of the underwater cable firm said that the initiative is driven
essentially by utter reason that Nigeria and Ghana share similar business
models and are leading economies in West Africa. “West Africa’s real Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) growth was 6.2 percent in 2011. The growth is largely
driven by Ghana and Nigeria that share similar language, culture and practice.
“They have similar business opportunities with great
potentials for regional integration of businesses. So, we are creating
awareness with our solution on how to harness these potentials for optimal
growth”, she stated. Joseph Odoi, country manager, Main One Cable Ghana told
the conference that the firm has extended its operations to Togo by virtue of
an interconnection through Ghana and is currently servicing the Republic of
Benin from Nigeria. According to him, plans are already underway to extend services
to landlocked areas such as Republic of Burkina Faso and Senegal. He disclosed
that the firm was currently engaging ONATEL, the national exchange carrier of
Burkina Faso and SONATEL, principal telecoms provider of Senegal.
This is with a view to forging strategic alliances that
would enable MainOne leverage their existing terrestial fibre backbone to move
bandwidth capacity across the region. Analysts at the conference expressed
optimism that the move would deepen the integration of regional markets as well
as open up of new business opportunities through the provision of cross-border
connectivity. According to them, cheap and accessible bandwidth would allow
access to both knowledge and opportunities. This would in turn help large
numbers of West Africans increase their potential to succeed. “We are connected
into West Africa’s internet highway. MainOne’s connection into Togo is via NCBC
and MTN’s West African Terrestial networks.
“The challenge has been the francophone divide. We have
built strong relationships with TOGOTEL, ONATEL and SONATEL. We are committed
to building a regional network that would not only assist service providers
deliver higher quality services but lower the cost of data and voice
communications for enterprises and businesses with regional offices”, he added.
Odoi revealed that Main One had connected Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in
Ghana and Nigeria respectively to encourage local peering. Local peering
entails allowing service providers to interconnect with the telecom network
thereby enabling the exchange of internet traffic within the countries
respectively. “This is very critical to reduction of communications cost.
“This is because there is no need for carrying local
traffic to a distant handover point and back again. “There is no charge for
local traffic exchange.” Odoi however alluded to the importance of broadband
connectivity in the creating job opportunities and transforming the economies
of West Africa. Oando and EcoBank are already taking advantage of MainOne’s
cross-border network to improve business efficiency and productivity across the
West African sub-region. “Over the last two years, MainOne has connected Accra
to Lagos. But there are two countries in-between Accra and Lagos and that’s
Benin and Togo. There are monopolies in these countries but we wanted an
International Private Lease Circuit (IPLC) straight from site to site.
“Today, we now have circuits from Accra – Lagos, Accra –
Lome, Accra-Cotonou all the way to our data centre in London. We are working
towards connecting Burkina Faso and Guinea”, Tunji Alabi, group head for
technology infrastructure of EcoBank said. According to Alabi, “We do a lot of
regional trade but it is below the counter because there is no telecoms
infrastructure to account for this trade.” The company’s state-of-the-art open
access wholesale international connectivity and broadband capacity will ensure
day to day consolidation and back-up connectivity, foster internet adoption and
provide communication services to internet service providers, enterprises and government
institutions in West African countries.
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