The multi-billion naira cable called Glo2 is to be built by Huawei – most likely Huawei Marine, the subsea cable solutions subsidiary of Huawei - who were also present during the contract signing ceremony that took place this week.
“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. Glo2 will be the first submarine cable in Nigeria to land outside Lagos as the five existing submarine cables only landed in Lagos. Glo2 will have capacity of 12Tbps 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,” said Sanjib Roy, Globacom’s regional director of technical.
Speaking during the ceremony Roy explained that the Glo2 would be built along the Nigerian coast from Alpha Beach in Lagos down to the southern part of Nigeria. Once live the new facility will enable high capacity connectivity to the southern region of the country delivering much needed capacity to offshore oil companies and local communities.
He added that Glo2 would boost telecommunications service delivery by providing economic and social freedom to communities in the aforementioned oil producing regions. In addition the new cable will offer high speed internet connections and help to digitise operations of the oil companies to improve productivity and data upload speeds.
“Glo2 will be the first submarine cable in Nigeria to land outside Lagos as the five existing submarine cables only landed in Lagos. Glo2 will have capacity of 12Tbps 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,” continued Roy.
The cable has been designed for future expansion. “It is also designed for further expansion southwards to Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Angola, among others,” continued Roy.
It will contain three fibre 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. According to Roy, the second pair will be equipped with eight switchable Branching Units (BUs) which will deliver high capacity to offshore oil stations and communities directly connected to it, while the third pair will be equipped with two switchable BUs to deliver high capacity to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
Speaking on behalf of Huawei, Li Beifang, managing director of Huawei Nigeria, said: “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 digitalisation to the Nigerian economy.”
Glo2 follows Globacom’s Glo1, the international subsea cable built in 2010 linking Lagos to London.
