Press Release

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

How Main One is tackling Nigeria’s broadband access challenge

Press Release - Tuesday, January 17, 2012

That Main One Cable Company has accomplished a record as the first privately owned sub marine fibre optic cable company in West Africa to connect the sub-region with the rest of the world may no longer be news. The company laid a submarine cable over a distance of 7,000 kilometers along the West African coastline with a view to helping to bridge the digital divide between the continent and the rest of the world.

Dubbed Main One Cable, the system links West Africa with Europe, bringing ultra-fast broadband in the region. It runs from Seixal in Portugal through Accra in Ghana to Lagos in Nigeria and branches out in Morocco, Canary Islands, Senegal, and Ivory Coast. On what is spectacular about the Main One subsea cable is that it has a capacity of 1.92 terabits a second thereby providing a high-speed, low-priced, reliable broadband that is essential in transforming African economies and creating job opportunities.

After the launch of Main One Cable, other entrepreneurs began financing the laying of more subsea cables. Already, Glo 1 owned by Nigerian telecoms company, Globacom, has commenced operations while WACS, owned by MTN and ACE are already nearing completion. Despite these efforts, slow connectivity and high internet costs still plague internet users on the continent. According to figures by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Internet-user penetration in sub-Saharan Africa was 10.6% in 2010, far behind the world average of about 30%.

Worried about the scenario, the United Nations recently took a decisive step towards enhancing internet access in developing countries as it saddled one of its commissions, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, with the responsibility of setting standards for development in different parts of the world. In line with that, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development has agreed on a set of four ‘ambitious but achievable’ new targets that countries around the world should strive to meet in order to ensure their populations fully participate in tomorrow’s emerging knowledge societies.

The new targets are: It now becomes imperative for all countries that by 2015, they should have a national broadband plan or strategy or include broadband in their Universal Access / Service Definitions. Similarly, developing countries must make broadband affordable through adequate regulation and market forces (for example, amount to less than 5% of average monthly income). The commission also stressed that by that year, no fewer than 40% of households in developing countries should have Internet access. By the said year, the commission expects the Internet user penetration to reach 60% worldwide, 50% in developing countries and 15% in Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

“These targets are ambitious but achievable, given the political will and commitment on the part of governments, working in partnership with the private sector,” said Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General, who serves as co-Vice Chair of the Commission alongside UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

In order to ensure compliance, Toure warned, ITU will undertake responsibility for measuring each country’s progress towards the targets, producing an annual broadband report with rankings of nations worldwide in terms of broadband policy, affordability and uptake.

Meanwhile, speaking recently on an interview session on the Cable News Network (CNN), Funke Opeke, CEO Main One Cable disclosed that despite the big decrease in wholesale cost consumers have still not seen a difference in the price they pay, pointing out that all of Nigeria's infrastructure is self-provisioned by different retail operators, which keep charging the same prices for the domestic part of the services.

"The people who own the distribution networks are not passing on the saving, there's no open-access distribution or common carriers like you would have in a developed market," says Opeke.

The lack of a national backbone infrastructure on an open-access basis is also making it expensive to move capacity within Nigeria, according to Opeke. As a result, she says, connecting people from the company's landing point in Nigeria to London costs less than connecting people across Lagos. "You have to buy that infrastructure from people who own it for their own proprietary use, so it's a cartel-like situation," she says.

She however disclosed that Main One Cable, which does not sell its capacity directly to homes or small and medium-size businesses, has also started investing in distribution infrastructure, building its own networks when it can't find "commercially reasonable rates.  "The biggest challenge that we see is getting the capacity we have in this big pipe that we brought into Nigeria and Ghana across the region to reach the people and businesses where they need the service," she says.

Opeke further added that as part of Main One’s effort to ensure that Nigerians have increased access to broadband at even cheaper prices, the company has started a campaign for the development of national broadband policy. According to her, such a policy document will accelerate the ambitious push by the ITU as well to achieve its four-point agenda.

“At Main One, we have taken time to study the multifarious challenges facing the sector and which impedes efforts to enhance increased broadband access and penetration in the country. What we came up with was a document which has crystallised into a campaign for the enactment of a national broadband policy by the Federal Government. Such a policy must also accommodate input from industry players to ensure that the objectives are achieved. We think that a national broadband policy will set up the framework to remove the bottlenecks around last mile, collocation of facilities and right of way for the good of Nigerians”.

Main One’s push for enhanced national broadband access is already attracting support from other players in the sector as well as key stakeholders. The Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), during its last annual convention in 2011, called on the Federal to among other things, set in motion a machinery for the development of a national broadband policy.

According to ATCON’s national President, Titi Omo-Ettu, ‘such a policy document will help place Nigeria on a pedestal to tap from the limitless opportunities which broadband offers’. Dr. Omo-Ettu also added that broadband has become a key catalyst for accelerating economic development by nations across the globe.

In addition to championing calls for a national broadband policy, Main One has also commenced efforts to land another sub-marine cable in the Niger Delta region to extend access to the hinterlands of Southern Nigeria. Opeke says the project is capital intensive but it underscores Main One’s effort to break new grounds.

“We are already working round the clock to ensure that another fibre optic cable is landed in the Niger Delta any time soon. The project is in sync with our objective of taking our huge capacity to the hinterlands despite the challenges posed by the peculiar nature of the Niger Delta terrain. The project, when completed, will further drive down cost of broadband access and spur economic development in the region and the Southern part of the country. We believe that there is no better way of demonstrating our commitment to driving broadband penetration in Nigeria other than this’, Opeke added

It should be recalled that Main One was the first submarine cable company to offer open access, wholesale broadband capacity in West Africa. It is a wholly African-owned company that is executing its vision to expand the much needed capacity on the African continent and reduce the cost of broadband communication across the continent.

The cable system was declared ready for service in July 2010 with initial landing stations in Nigeria, Ghana and Portugal – linking West Africa to the rest of the world via Portugal and the United Kingdom.

Main One’s continued focus is to provide innovative, reliable and affordable high capacity fiber that ensures first class service delivery of the much needed broadband capacity within West Africa. Its services are accessible for regional and international operators as well as service providers. With its IP service offering, broadband capacity is also available to enterprise clients through its resellers.