The new branches will connect to MainOne’s 7,000km cable system that links Portugal to Nigeria and will integrate new technology that upgrades the cable to a potential capacity of 10Tbps by November 2019 when the cable goes live.
“MainOne continues to lead the current digital transformation of the region by ushering in affordable connectivity to drive economic development. Our objective remains focused on bridging the digital divide between West Africa and the rest of the world. We have, and will continue to, invest significantly in projects to accelerate broadband access to help local businesses address the challenges they face procuring capacity at competitive rates. This extension of our subsea cable to Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire will further open up their international bandwidth markets, drive down costs and ultimately boost the economic and commercial development of the region,” said Kazeem Oladepo, regional executive for West Africa at MainOne.
With the addition of the two new branches, MainOne will have landing points in five markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire and Portugal, in addition to Cameroon. The company says that a number of francophone countries in West Africa are experiencing increased demand for advanced telecom services such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania will also benefit from the new branches into Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire.
“These MainOne enhancements bring two additional connectivity options to this rapidly growing region,” said Debbie Brask, vice president, project management of TE SubCom. “MainOne has also selected SubCom’s industry leading WSS ROADM technology to achieve dynamic capacity management in fulfilling the region’s burgeoning demand.”
TE SubCom will equip the new cable branches with its WSS ROADM technology enabling MainOne and its partners to match the capacity in each branch to the various market needs and thereby optimising use of the cable. In addition, SubCom will light the new branches with Ciena’s transmission equipment that allows for increased flexibility and capacity.
Earlier this week Cerberus Capital Management confirmed that it going to acquire TE SubCom for $325 million. The deal is expected to close by the end of TE SubCom’s 2019 fiscal year (December 2018), subject to the standard regulatory conditions and TE Connectivity intends on using the proceeds of the transaction to finance share repurchases.
