If you`re a service provider or a business customer looking for bandwidth connectivity option from Europe to West Africa, you`re in luck as phase one of the Main One submarine cable linking the two countries is now complete.
Running from Portugal to Nigeria and Ghana, the 7,000 km Main One cable has cable landing stations in Nigeria and Ghana and branching units in Morocco, Senegal, Canary Islands and Ivory Coast. With 1.92 Tbps of capacity, the service provider claims that the new cable will be able to deliver more than ten times the capacity of Nigeria`s main undersea cable, the South Atlantic Terminal (SAT-3).
With phase one of Main One`s submarine cable network complete, the service provider has begun construction of the second phase of the network in Ghana and Nigeria with an extension to South Africa that it expects to be completed by the end of 2011.
Main One is one of three new high profile submarine cabling systems connecting Europe and Africa as an alternative to Nigeria`s monopoly carrier Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL). Similar efforts are being carried out by both Nigeria`s Globacom and a partnership between France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) and the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) consortium. Globacom plans to go live with its 9,800 km Glo-One submarine cable linking Africa to Manchester, England this year, while the joint France Telecom/ACE cable, which stretches from Western France to Cape Town, South Africa, will be ready in the first half of 2012.
