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.

Mr 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.