Adenuga: ‘Glo 1’ Will Bring New Prosperity to Africa

By Efem Nkanga

As Glo 1, the multi-million dollar international submarine cable project of National Operator, Globacom, landed in Lagos over the weekend, the telecoms giant has said the arrival of the cable would usher a new era of prosperity in Africa.
Globacom’s Group Executive Director (GED), Mr. Paddy Adenuga, said in a statement to mark the landing of the cable that Glo 1 “will stimulate a new era of prosperity in the continent by offering cheap, fast and reliable international calls, unprecedented fast access to the internet and revolutionary data transfer”.
The GED said the cumulative effect of the huge bandwidth and cheaper rates Glo 1 would bring to the continent “will empower Africans in the field of communications, education, agriculture, banking and health”.
Enumerating the benefits of the cable to the society at large in detail, Adenuga said Glo 1 would also support teleconferencing, distance learning, disaster recovery and telemedicine among several other benefits for Nigerians and Africans.
He added that Glo 1 would also aid on-line diagnosis and video conferencing during surgery and research, adding that “distance learning will be made easy by enabling participation for a class of students and lecturers from different parts of the world in real time”.
Adenuga further disclosed that Glo-1′s current and upgradable capacity is enough to cater for Nigeria’s broadband requirements for at least the next 15 to 20 years.
Glo 1 has a current capacity of 640 gigabit per second and an ultimate capacity of 2.5 terabit per second.
“Glo 1 will provide the needed opportunity for West Africa and indeed Africa to leap forward economically through an excellent communication network and a cost-effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe and the rest of the world,” Adenuga stated.
“With Glo 1, we will provide the most comprehensive international communication services on the continent to bridge the digital divide between Africa and the rest of the World,” he added.
He said Glo 1 would offer “99.9 per cent” up time reliability, distinctly clear long distance voice, video and data communication services to Africans, adding that the cable would support the large bandwidth requirements of direct consumers and other service providers.
He also disclosed that Glo 1 would free up resources which otherwise would have been expended on expensive communication for both the government and the private sector because of its radically low rates and broad market coverage at high capacity.
He added that the cable would also facilitate foreign investment and employment opportunities in Africa.
Representatives of Globacom, Alcatel, and the media witnessed the historic anchoring of the 9,800km-long cable that runs from New York and United Kingdom at its Landing Station at Alpha Beach, Lekki, Lagos amidst huge appreciation of Globacom for being the first telecommunications company in the world to fund such a long distance optic fibre submarine cable without the support of a consortium.
Adenuga said with the delivery of Glo 1 which connects 16 West African countries and other African countries such as Mauritania and Morocco to the rest of the world, “Globacom has yet again demonstrated its incredible capacity to deliver excellent services”.
After connecting the cable to its landing station in Lagos, the Intrepid, the ship which brought the Glo 1 cable, has headed for Accra, Ghana, Dakar, Senegal and Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire.
Glo Mobile Ghana is about rolling out its operation in the whole of the country at once. Globacom is also planning to build another submarine cable, Glo 2, that will connect South Africa through Angola.
Since Globacom commenced operation six years ago, it has won national and international accolades for revolutionising the telecoms industry particularly with the Per Second Billing which other operators had said was impossible.
Glo also pioneered the introduction of numerous innovative services in the Nigerian telecoms industry including Mobile Internet, Blackberry, Vehicle Tracking, Voice SMS and In-flight Roaming.
Globacom is credited for making telephony available and affordable for Nigerians. The telecoms giant has a vision to build the biggest and best telecommunications network in Africa and it already has its footprint in Ghana and Benin Republic, earning in the process the respect of many as Nigeria’s premium corporate ambassador.