MainOne is an open access submarine cable system, which when completed will span 14,000 kilometres and will provide international and Internet connectivity to countries between Portugal and South Africa on the West coast of Africa. MainOne will interconnect countries on the Atlantic Coast from Morocco through to Angola with each other, and through Portugal to the rest of the world.

Specifically, the cable system will originate in Seixal, Portugal where it will interconnect with other cable systems to London, New York and key cities in Asia. The cable system will also directly connect landing stations in Accra and Lagos in Phase 1, with optional landings in Casablanca, Morocco; Dakar, Senegal; Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire, and Bonny Nigeria; Libreville, Gabon; Pointe Noire, Congo; Luanda, Angola; and Cape Town, South Africa, subject to the securing of licenses in these additional destinations. An outline map of the proposed cable system is attached

Once commissioned in 2010, MainOne will provide the much-needed bandwidth on the continent. The MainOne cable system will have a design capacity of 1.28 Tbps; representing approximately 10 times the current capacity available on the West Coast. With MainOne therefore, international bandwidth prices will reduce, in addition to bandwidth intensive services such as IPTV, HDTV etc being easily provided within the region.

MainOne is a private sector-led initiative with Main Street Technologies as the sponsor. Accordingly, MainOne has been funded thus far by private investors out of Nigeria, with additional funding lined up through institutional investors globally. The funding of the MainOne cable system has been structured to ensure a minimum of 50% African ownership.