Nigeria Content Online

Three telecoms
firms have subscribed to a new undersea cable linking Nigeria and West
Africa to Europe, paving the way for a transformation in Internet
access in Africa’s fastest-growing telecoms market.

The Nigerian arm
of Etisalat, South Africa’s MTN and Nigeria’s Starcomms are among the
first to sign up for broadband services from the cable, its operator
the Main One Cable Company said on Wednesday.

The 7,000 km fibre
optic cable, built in partnership with U.S. firm Tyco, runs from
Portugal to Nigeria and Ghana, and also branches out to Morocco, the
Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Main One says the
cable delivers more than ten times the broadband capacity of the South
Atlantic Terminal (SAT-3), Nigeria’s sole existing undersea cable, and
will enable service providers to offer cheaper and more reliable
internet access.

“Those
pre-construction customers … that have taken up our services to date
are Etisalat, MTN and Starcomms,” Main One chief executive Funke Opeke
told investors and telecoms executives at a launch ceremony in the
commercial hub Lagos.

Participants from
Bangalore, London and Johannesburg took part in the launch using
teleconferencing facilities — not previously possible in Nigeria —
hosted by U.S. router maker Cisco Systems Inc, which is partnering with
Main One to develop applications for the Nigerian market.

Steven Evans,
chief executive of Etisalat’s Nigerian arm, told Reuters his firm was
testing the cable and would go live on it within a day or two.

“We are working
very hard at the moment to go live on the network, hopefully within the
next 24-48 hours … so that we will be one of the first people to be
having broadband on the main network in Nigeria,” Evans said.

Evans said the
cable would enable mobile phone operators to launch enhanced services,
increase speed and lower prices, boosting competition in Africa’s most
populous nation of 140 million people.

MTN is Nigeria’s
biggest mobile operator but faces tough competition from local firm
Globacom and from India’s Bharti, which last month completed a $9
billion acquisition of the African operations of Kuwait’s Zain.

Main One’s cable will close the technology gap between Nigeria and
other parts of the world. The cable, which has a capacity of 1.92
terabits, can accommodate 1 million MP3 downloads and 100 million voice
calls per second. South Africa’s capacity is 1.28 terabits.