Oluwaseun Ayantokun, Lagos - 07.09.2009

HISTORY was made in Nigeria at the weekend as officials of Alcatel Lucent handed over the Lagos end of Glo 1, the 9,800 km long submarine cable capable of carrying data and internet traffic between Nigeria and the rest of the world at a phenomenal speed, to officials of Globacom.

The undersea cable with a current capacity of 640 giga bytes per second and final capacity of 2.5 terabits per second, practically breaks the monopoly of NITEL’s 120 giga bytes per second SAT 3, providing international connectivity from Lagos to the UK and the US, the world’s two major data hubs.

This thus offers a better solution to the problem of unmet high demand for bandwidth in the country and other parts of West Africa.

Nigeria, which spends about N100 billion annually on importation of bandwidth dispensed mostly through satellite devices that are not free from natural interferences, and other West African countries have hitherto been making do with the limited capacity of the SAT 3 cable.

In electronic communication, bandwidth is the width of the range of frequencies that an electronic signal uses on a given transmission medium.

Speaking at a press conference at Mike Adenuga Towers, Victoria Island, Lagos, after the handing over of the cable, Mr. Adewale Sangowanwa, Executive Director, Human Resources, Globacom, said the cable of the 32 STM 64 type had virtual infinite capacity.

“Therefore offers sufficient capacity for traffic for the Globacom’s mobile, fixed, and internet telecommunication services and all other operators in West Africa that come for leasing.

“All over the world no company or country has ever single-handedly executed this kind of project. It has been consortiums and teams of countries but this is what Globacom, a Nigerian company, has done.”

Mr. Ibrahim Fadipe, Head, Glo Gateway, said Nigerians would begin to harvest the dividends of the project in six weeks time when it would be commercially launched.

Stating that it offered 99.9 per cent up time reliability, Mr. Kayode Adebiyi, Project Manager, Glo 1, Globacom, said what the development meant was world-class long distance voice, video and high speed data communication services to the African customer.

“It means economic leap, more job opportunities in West Africa, efficient and effective telemedicine, e-learning, e-banking, telecommunication, disaster management and more,” he explained.

Mr. Peter Schubert, Senior General Manager, Alcatel-Lucent, described the achievement as remarkable, stating that the cable was enough to cater for all operators that came for it.

According to Mr. Suren Christensen, Senior Project Manager, Marine, Alcatel-Lucent, the cable with at least a 25-year lifespan, would have been delivered earlier than now if not for various conditions that had to be met in the many countries where it had branching units.[url][url]http://tribune.com.ng/07092009/news/news4.html

Finally. . .next thing I await is pricing

was abt to say d same thing

Bring on the competition,abeg!

good work glo. but isn't it too early to conclude which is better?

Internet prices and international call prices will begin to go southward, it doesnt matter which is better for now. competion will put both on their toes, service quality and pricing will improve.

going by the details that we know about it, it should easily shrug off all potential competitors but given the nigerian factor in all things related to nigeria. it might end up being slower than dial up starcomms,
i keep my fingers crossed till further notice about it.

please when can we start using it and how much will it cost also.

this is very good news

9ice 1
been expecting this,

George_D:

good work glo. but isn't it too early to conclude which is better?

I have changed my internet service provider at least 4 times now.
I went for the MTN 3G modem last year , it was super-fast , .and I was telling everybody there is nothing like it , in terms of personal internet connection , but I was still cautious though, that is talking about the Nigerian factor in which things that start well are not well managed.
Well, I was not far from the truth , the connection is really horrible now. It disconnects intermittently and makes working online quite frustrating.
I hope that Glo will offer a better service , being fully indigenous and I am considering joining them since they are claiming that it is going to 99.9% up time reliability. If this is really true, then I can set up my cafe.

I cant wait for it to get commercial,but like SAT 3 ,would it be available outside of lagos, abuja and port harcourt?

Hmmmm. 640 compared to NITEL's 120GG

Sounds good

Congratulations Glo

Just make sure the last mile deployment to consumers is hitch-free, as that often is the case with other fiber solutions in Nigeria.

Nice!

the koko be say how much will it cost?

This is a welcome news for IT in naija. At least it is an indigenous achievement.

what does all this translate into in terms of download speed for my laptop, i currently get 10kb on dial up. someone tell me

Another reason why I like this Mike guy,

Can someone plz help me clap for this guy once more?

0805, glo for life, iya won,

yeah,this is really a good news.i never thought that glo would finish that project,but i guess am wrong.we are really suffering poor internet connectivity so interested parties should get things started.internet providers,time to switch over!.

Maybe you need to read this. Glo is taking us a step towards its realization. Well done, GLO

WASHINGTON (AFP) -
The United States ranks 28th in the world in average Internet connection speed and is not making significant progress in building a faster network, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The report by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said the average download speed in South Korea is 20.4 megabits per second (mbps) -- four times faster than the US average of 5.1 mbps.
Japan trails South Korea with an average of 15.8 mbps followed by Sweden at 12.8 mbps and the Netherlands at 11.0 mbps, the report said.
It said tests conducted by speedmatters.org found the average US download speed had improved by only nine-tenths of a megabit per second between 2008 and 2009 -- from 4.2 mbps to 5.1 mbps.
"The US has not made significant improvement in the speeds at which residents connect to the Internet," the report said. "Our nation continues to fall far behind other countries."
"People in Japan can upload a high-definition video in 12 minutes, compared to a grueling 2.5 hours at the US average upload speed," the report said.
It said 18 percent of those who took a US speed test recorded download speeds that were slower than 768 kilobits per second, which does not even qualify as basic broadband, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Sixty-four percent connected at up to 10 mbps, 19 percent connected at speeds greater than 10 mbps and two percent exceeded 25 mbps.
The United States was ranked 20th in broadband penetration in a survey of 58 countries released earlier this year by Boston-based Strategy Analytics.
South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, Denmark and Taiwan were the top five countries listed in terms of access to high-speed Internet.
US President Barack Obama has pledged to put broadband in every home and the FCC has embarked on an ambitious project to bring high-speed Internet access to every corner of the United States.
According to the CWA report, the fastest download speeds in the United States are in the northeastern parts of the country while the slowest are in states such as Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Lets hope that the militants will not go under water to sabotage this laudable project.

Excellent! Please they should hurry with the commercialization.

dove24u:

Oluwaseun Ayantokun, Lagos - 07.09.2009

HISTORY was made in Nigeria at the weekend as officials of Alcatel Lucent handed over the Lagos end of Glo 1, the 9,800 km long submarine cable capable of carrying data and internet traffic between Nigeria and the rest of the world at a phenomenal speed, to officials of Globacom.



“All over the world no company or country has ever single-handedly executed this kind of project. It has been consortiums and teams of countries but this is what Globacom, a Nigerian company, has done.”

Where is Dora?

It will get even better fro next year Main One cable will also land so there might be excess capacity which will be good for consumers, as long as they dont form a cartel

very nice, i'll go and look for my glo sim and wait

Nice . . . hope it works just fine. . .

Up Glo, Up Naija. I think its about time I get a Glo line.

well done GLO, great job and  a giant stride in nigerian IT
Its high time that FG breaks the monopoly of phcn, nepa so serious private companies can give us constant electricity jare.

thats a nice start, but since most houses in Lagos are not planned, then I guess its only for the rich ones, like those that stays in d vgc area, I hope the middle class ones dat stays around the low class citizen can enjoy this benefit too, Here in malaysia a broadband cable runs into every house, but its left for u to subscribe or not, even a vacant land has own point for broadband communication, So will it be like this too in Naija? Just ma question o!

stanloski:

It will get even better fro next year Main One cable will also land so there might be excess capacity which will be good for consumers, as long as they dont form a cartel

plz, which one is Main One cable?

naylove:

going by the details that we know about it, it should easily shrug off all potential competitors but given the nigerian factor in all things related to nigeria. it might end up being slower than dial up starcomms,
i keep my fingers crossed till further notice about it.

please when can we start using it and how much will it cost also.

That's a rather crude analogy seeing dial up speeds max out @ 56 kbps although compression can quadruple that. Fiber speeds on the other hand are rated in tens of mbps. Use Google to do the math.

@ post- Good as it is, you should know the first target of the rollout will be Corporate customers. Even when it trickles down to home users, how many places have the infrastructure as [b]pritypeety [/b]rightly pointed out. Though GLO was laying cables all over the place some time ago, did they get to your hood? If they can't give us Fibre speeds for now ADSL speeds would be a nice start.