The project is the first commercial cable system in service that uses spectrum sharing capabilities that will support infrastructure sharing and lower the cost of delivering broadband services to the region.
The new subsea system will offer direct connections to various regional and global Internet Exchanges including the Nigerian Internet Exchange (IXPN), Ghanaian Internet Exchange (GIX), London Internet Exchange (LINX) and Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMSIX).
In addition to the launch of the cable, MainOne also confirms the availability of its Cote d’Ivoire data centre. The facility has been built to Tier III standards, to address the needs of corporate clients, public institutions and service providers for shared services, supporting their cost reduction and operational efficiency drive.
The new site will offer rack spaces for customers to easily collocate their IT infrastructure, while gaining access to fully redundant power, cooling, carrier-grade security and fire prevention facilities on a shared basis.
“We remain committed to providing infrastructure and connectivity services that support the digitisation journey and economic development of the region,” said Kazeem Oladepo (pictured), regional executive, MainOne. “Our investment into Cote d’Ivoire will see MainOne contributing to the growth of the local economy, by serving enterprises and telecommunication providers with world-class connectivity solutions and data centre expertise.”
The announcement follows the news of a partnership between MainOne and Orange in September 2018 for the construction and installation of two new branches and stations. One in Dakar in Senegal and the other in Abidjan in the Côte d’Ivoire. The Senegal system was made live in August 2019 in a post made by the company on its official Twitter account.
A few days after the deal with Orange was confirmed, SubCom (then TE SubCom) was named as the cable vendor for the project. SubCom said that it would 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.
