Glo signs on Huawei to build submarine cable across communities, oil platforms

 Telecommunication’s company, Globacom, again takes a giant leap to boost  ICT  in Nigeria with its planned  construction of a multi-billion naira optic fibre submarine cable which will run across oil platforms and communities in Nigeria.
Named  Glo 2,  the initiative was unveiled at a contract-signing ceremony between the national operator, Globacom, and global telecom solutions vendors, Huawei,  on Tuesday at  the Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Globacom’s Regional Director, Technical, Mr Sanjib Roy, said  at the ceremony that the   submarine cable would wind round the Nigerian coast from Alpha Beach in Lagos, where Glo 1 landing station is located, to the Southern part of Nigeria as well as availing   ultra high capacity connection to the South-South Region where capacity will be provided to  offshore oil platforms and the communities.
 Glo 2 project is expected to boost telecommunication service delivery in the country and add to the  economic  and  social empowerment of the communities in the oil producing regions. It will equally provide high speed internet connectivity as well as digitalize oil platforms  with a view to improving productivity by  uploading data to remote oil platforms at the speed of light.
According to him,  “Glo2 will be the first submarine cable in Nigeria to land outside Lagos as the five existing submarine cables only landed in Lagos. Glo 2 will have capacity of 12Terabit per second and will provide ultra-high speed connection to oil platforms and communities to empower data coverage and support Enterprise market growth in this part of Nigeria”.
He further disclosed that Glo is the first to provide dedicated  submarine optical fiber to oil platforms to support the growth of the Nigerian economy while assisting  Oil Communities to cut down on  their operational expenditure. “It is also designed for further expansion southwards to Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Angola, among others,” he said.
Roy added that Glo 2 would enable high capacity connections between oil companies’ offices onshore and their offshore locations. “The New submarine cable will be approximately 850 kilometres long and will be named Glo2.  The cable will be integrated to Globacom’s existing terrestrial Backbone Network to provide additional service redundancy, especially Abuja and other parts of the country”, he posited.  
While  the cable would contain three fiber pairs, with the first pair connecting Lagos directly to the  Southern part of Nigeria with terrestrial extension to other parts of the country for redundancy and maintenance purposes, the second will be equipped with eight switchable Branching Units (BUs) which will deliver high capacity to offshore oil stations and communities connected directly to BUs, with  the third pair equipped with two (2) switchable Branching Units to deliver high capacity to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
 The new project complements the Glo 1 international submarine cable built by Globacom in 2010 which  is the only one of its kind  in Nigeria managed end to end, from Lagos to London, by a single  business concern and currently supplies sufficient bandwidth to  the West African sub-region.
Managing Director of Huawei , Mr. Li Belfang, declared at the event that  Huawei is proud to partner with Globacom to build a revolutionary submarine cable using innovative and leading technology. “We believe the cable would bring a new era of digitalization to Nigerian economy”, he said.