You are talking from the point of view of your needs. I think we all are.
You think 50kbps is enough until you have it. . .
The more access you have the more your requirements grow?

You can't tell me someday soon you won't want to run a company of your own.
If for example you have a small company you are building that porvides services to Nigerians in the diaspora, you probably will want to set up a website(to display your goods), an office(for geogrphical prescence), a few computers and internet access on all the computers. . .

You may think of extending your services to the east of Nigeria and the North  . . You open offices, you have computers in the east, North and Lagos. . . You want internet access on all pcs. . . . A consultant tells you deploying VOIP will help save the cost of trunk calls between your offices. . You need internet (at the least, without going into complex stuff)

Then someone in the US likes your services, contacts their people in the UK about meeting up with you. . You all agree to meet using a video over IP while you make a presentation to them. . . 

How then do you think a 50kbps will suffice?

Maybe by then, all these issues will be solved. . .

Are there any companies in Nigeria offering WIMAX. . ?

There are a bunch that are running Wimax, but the ones I know for sure are Swift networks, and MTN. There are others, but I don't know them for sure. Swift is actually in the process of upgrading all their equipment.

Dear Esteemed Customer,



I am pleased to announce that we have signed a turnkey (design, deploy, optimize and support) agreement with Huawei Technologies to implement our network upgrade to the 4G Wireless Broadband Access Network standard, based on the IEEE WiMAX 802.16e protocol. This upgrade project commenced today and will be implemented in phases over the next six months to avoid service disruption.



With this project, we shall quadruple our current network capacity and improve service coverage to offer you unmatched 4G broadband speed and reliability. This upgrade will also prepare our network to bring the advantages of the impending improved  international backbone capacity availability in Nigeria to our customers. In addition, our customers will enjoy the benefits of converged telecommunications services, using the most efficient and cost-effective wireless broadband technology available in our industry today.



We have taken every precaution to ensure that your current service quality is not be affected during the period of upgrade. We shall cut you over to the new network on a new and technologically superior modem to be exchanged for your current modem from SWIFT. This new modem will come to you free of cost.



Huawei is fast emerging a world leader in the provision of wireless technology solutions, serving 36 of the world’s 50 top telecom Operators including Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, China Mobile (the biggest mobile operator in the world), Vodafone, Orange, Telecom Italia and Deutsche Telecom among others. It is the number one Vendor in the West African region with 36% market share and also the leading Supplier to Nigerian Operators with 39% market share. Huawei is the leading Supplier to MTN, Zain, GLO, Etisalat, Starcomms, Visafone and Multilinks and with 39% share of the Nigerian market.



I will revert periodically to you with updates on this subject and will be pleased to provide any further clarifications you may require from us. Meanwhile, we will be pleased to learn of any comments or suggestions you may have to help us serve you better. I urge you to take a minute to participate in a brief customer satisfaction survey that will help us be a better company and serve you better. To participate, please log on to http://int.swiftng.com/survey.htm.



Once more, I thank you for your business and support all these years. It is my hope that we shall continue to evolve our business to meet your evolving telecommunications needs.



Thank you,



Charles Anudu

Managing Director

SWIFT NETWORKS LIMITED

other wimax operators are Direct-on-pc, ipnx,

Regarding last mile, how do the fibre cables being laid out by Phase 3 Telecoms and Dangote's Alheri Engineering fit in. They are being laid along PHCN powerlines.

lumzi23:

Regarding last mile, how do the fibre cables being laid out by Phase 3 Telecoms and Dangote's Alheri Engineering fit in. They are being laid along PHCN powerlines.

they are merely leasing the cables from PHCN, they dont own them, PHCN installed them a while back

Are you sure? Because according to this article they are still being built.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200901210237.html

At a ceremony in Benin recently, President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, said Alheri Engineering had decided to collaborate with Phase3 Telecoms to build a 1,4000 kilometre fibre optic network across the country.

yep i'm sure. . .spent quite a bit of time in PHCN, fibre was laid 2002ish PHCN uses it for data in very few places, but since there's so much capacity, they sold the rights in the north to 3phase and dangote got the rights for the south. . .

ok, cool.

One more question: Regarding Glo, what's the difference between it and Main One. You (or someone else) said Main One was only an international Gateway. Could explain further what this means?

@jdoss

Thanks a bunch.

lumzi23:

ok, cool.

One more question: Regarding Glo, what's the difference between it and Main One. You (or someone else) said Main One was only an international Gateway. Could explain further what this means?

The difference between them are:-

Glo are laying fibre right down to your neighbourhood. And they have a submarine cable as well.
Main one only have a submarine cable.


Main one takes things seriously.
Glo keeps dragging on and messing around.

Main One looks more serious and committed considering the array of investors and backers (GTB, AFC, Funke Opeke, Fola Adeola and Co)

Nobody seems to be sure who is backing Globacom. Adenuga? Babangida? Even his contractors Alcatel Lucent aren't stating much about the deal unlike Main One project.

Come to think of it Globacom says its glo 1 cost 800 million dollars to build, Main one says their cost 250 million. Main One is less than a third shorter  and 3 times the capacity of Glo. Look at this comparison


                                  Glo                                        Main One

Length                      9,800km                                7,000km
Capacity                    640 GB                                   1.92 TB
Cost                          800m dollars                         240 m dollars
Est Const period       4 years                                  18 months

I hope the launch of Main One will jolt Glo into being more transparent than it has been. For links to the above facts please see below

http://www.afdb.org/en/news-events/article/afdb-and-main-one-cable-company-sign-usd-61-million-loan-5140/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globacom

http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?p=2249

http://www.itnewsafrica.com/?p=3111

globacom= super liars, green liars

I guess Glo thought they were riding on to some sort of monopoly being a national carrier.
It's nice to know they have some competition.

I only just wish they can have some more competition for last mile bandwidth.

nateevs:

I guess Glo thought they were riding on to some sort of monopoly being a national carrier.
It's nice to know they have some competition.

I only just wish they can have some more competition for last mile bandwidth.

If Glo is bringing their cable to my  neighborhood unlike Marine one, is that not better (faster)?

Only God knows if Glo-1 will ever launch.

Thanks for the info goggs but, don't see Glo's Capacity in any of the links (i guess it is there somewhere).

Does anyone know the capacity of the one MTN is investing in.

@naijatoday

read this for glo 1's capacity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLO-1_%28cable_system%29

MTN is one of the companies investing in a 3.84Tbps cable

http://www.cw.com/Cable-Wireless-invests-in-high-speed-fibre-links-to-connect-Africa-and-Europe

More about the cable

http://africa.tmcnet.com/topics/othercountries/articles/54118-alcatel-lucent-wacs-partner-deploy-submarine-cable-network.htm

nateevs:

The difference between them are:-

Glo are laying fibre right down to your neighbourhood. And they have a submarine cable as well.
Main one only have a submarine cable.


Main one takes things seriously.
Glo keeps dragging on and messing around.

So assuming glo lays fibre to general consumers, will competing cables have access to said fibre.

lumzi23:

So assuming glo lays fibre to general consumers, will competing cables have access to said fibre.

If I understand your question well, my answer is; there can only be competition if other companies lay their own fibre to our doorsteps as well.
The other channel for competition is where companies buy bandwidth off Glo and sell to you.
That however can't be as competitive as where the company owns it's own infrastructure.
The companies will be selling just over the base rate that Glo offers them. . . Meaning everything (or yet most of) is still down to Glo.

nateevs:

If I understand your question well, my answer is; there can only be competition if other companies lay their own fibre to our doorsteps as well.
The other channel for competition is where companies buy bandwidth off Glo and sell to you.
That however can't be as competitive as where the company owns it's own infrastructure.
The companies will be selling just over the base rate that Glo offers them. . . Meaning everything (or yet most of) is still down to Glo.

Well, I hope that other companies lay down fibre to compete with Glo. Thank you.

i learnt that their launch day for the cable is next monday 21/6/2010

sauwal:

i learnt that their launch day for the cable is next monday 21/6/2010

Is this Glo-1 or Main One?

Haven't seen anything online, can anyone confirm if Glo-1 launched today.

Main-one is the only company that I know is launching in July.

I do not think Glo-1 will be launching anytime soon.

The era of the single submarine cable in Naija is about to come to an end . If anyone notices any improvement on any ISP tomorrow, please let me/us know. We can use that to identify those that purchased capacity.

jdoss:

The era of the single submarine cable in Naija is about to come to an end . If anyone notices any improvement on any ISP tomorrow, please let me/us know. We can use that to identify those that purchased capacity.

starcomms has improved remarkably. wonder if it's got anything to do with the main one cable launch.

@ flyuche

how much improvement have you experienced?

@flyuche
improve-kini? meself dey use starcomms and i never notice any improvement o. . .na abj i dey

@ flyuche
which state you in? [size=3pt]please be ph[/size]

Portharcourt.

Main One has launched!

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-472412.0.html

the first company that can guarantee me 400KBPS and no bandwidth restriction will get a 10 yr subscription from me

i hate the fact that am stuck in this country. i have just spent a 2 hrs watching live streams, cnn, youtube etc without a glitch and am guessing all i have is abt 180KBPS!!! i mean if that is enough for me ti actually do that type of stuff then oh golly wow. man i really think there is something wrong with us all in this country

jeez, WE ARE BACKWARDS IN THIS COUNTRY O!!!!

and for the record, FCCCKKK all ISP in this country. na God go punish una papa

@4ller
no glitch ke? wetin you dey use stream them vids?