GlO 1: DAWN OF A NEW ERA

Africa’s Civilisation Gets New Meaning

When Otunba Mike Adenuga Jnr launched his telecommunications conglomerate, Globacom, not many gave it a chance of becoming a global player. Seven years down the road, it is Globacom that now determines the direction of Africa’s telecommunications focus, with one ambitious project after another – with the latest, the submarine cable that holds the answers to all bandwidth questions in the continent.

“Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.”

Thus, went the first telephone call when Sir Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone on March 10, 1876 in Boston, Massachusetts. Bell's patent 174,465 had been issued to him on March 7, 1876, by the U.S. Patent Office.  Bell's patent covered “the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound.”

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Early civilisations were characterised by advanced agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialisation and urbanism. But as the years grew into centuries, however, other secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standards measurements – such as currency, sophisticated metallurgy, among others, got added to the plate.

Yet, of all these elements, none is as old as communication; and none has been – or would ever be – as transformational as communication.

From the spoken word, through the town-crier in the village square, to the system whereby messengers carried messages from kings to their peers across borders – for peace or for war; communication is perhaps the most soothing balm where nerves have become frayed; where relations between or among entities have taken a turn for the worse; indeed, communication is the single element that human beings cannot do without; because, “we cannot not communicate.”

Man’s task therefore, from time immemorial would appear to have been how best to communicate. And technology would come in a most essential ally to make communicating a most pleasing experience. Was this not the very reason that Sir Alexander Graham Bell became so historic in his invention?

What would be today’s world without the telephone, without the Internet? It would be a world too distant to traverse; yet, thanks to modern technological prowess, communication has so improved that the much mouthed global village has become a reality.

But in all of these, however, Nigeria has either been a bystander, receiving information, or merely a user of products, services or ideas by others and infrastructures domiciled or initiated from elsewhere.  Now however, Globacom is re-writing that history.

The Bush Track and the Expressway
Imagine a million people struggling to get to the same destination at the same time and all they have to contend with is a bush track, the very same you can recall having trudged on numberless times back in your village. As if that was not enough confusion, about the same numbers of people are heading the opposite direction. Imagine the pushing, shoving, lamentations, cursing, frustration and much worse that go with the attendance experiences of the sojourners.

With a few people marching upon it, the bush track may stand the pressure; but, give it a few hundred feet walking through simultaneously, back and forth; then stretch this into thousands, then you know there would be no going forward. Now, mass all this into millions in a flurry of activities, each in a bid to get to his or her destination first, thereby struggling to outdo the rest in the melee: commotion!

Now, imagine that after the frustrating and excruciating experience during which time those among the millions have either given up or are about to give, then, like manna from heaven, an expressway is constructed by a benevolent one, whose concern goes beyond the profit motive of the average business person. The benevolent one thus brings relief to the weary, succour the fainthearted, hope to the hopeless and gives fillip to the already ailing limbs of the sojourners, who, now reassured and reinvigorated by the conviction of not just getting to their destinations in record time, but to them has now been brought a road network that takes them to the comity of civilised nations.

The picture above is exactly how it has been up to now in the telecommunications arena in Nigeria and other West African, and indeed, African countries. Whereas the peoples of this continent, dogged by an environment that keeps them in check as they would like to travel far and wide regularly to kit and kin, telecommunications offers them the surest bet to keeping in touch despite being out of sight. Unfortunately, however, access to telecommunications remained the preserve of a few until recently when the hurricane of liberalisation hit the sector. And like a hurricane indeed, liberalisation has swept away all the old ways of doing business in telecommunications.

Yet, as liberalisation opened the way for many operators to offer several choices for the customer, they all had to contend with, like the bush track story above, small pipes for carrying their traffic, hence, quality telephony and data transmission have remained for the main part, a harrowing experience for the operators; but more painfully for the customers.

This was the state of telecommunications services in West Africa even with liberatlisaton that started in late 1990s and caught up much stronger in the early 2000s. It was this poor state of bandwidth for much needed communications that led the all conquering Mike Adenuga Jnr, who had only a couple of years previously, achieved a major feat by launching a national telecom operator, to venture into what would go down in history as the most ambitious submarine cable in history yet.

Glo Mobile, the mobile arm of the Globacom conglomerate, like many other GSM and CDMA providers, needs huge bandwidth to provide robust services to its teeming customers. Yet, this bandwidth was becoming such a source for worry that were Adenuga not a man with a large heart, perhaps the only option would have been to stop operations – which he would not conjecture at all; or at perhaps to continue to go cap in hand begging the owners of SAT-3, through NITEL, who had already made life unbearable for telecom operators.

From the companies with telecom operations to provide services to their ever increasing numbers of customers, to banks, oil and gas companies, governments across the length and breadth of West Africa, and indeed, deeper into Africa, Glo 1 holds the promise for helping them achieve the dreams and aspirations of taking their operations and their societies to the much talked about global village or the information superhighway – in practical terms.

The promise of bandwidth capacity
In electronic communication, bandwidth is the width of the range (or band) of frequencies that an electronic signal uses on a given transmission medium. In this usage, bandwidth is expressed in terms of the difference between the highest-frequency signal component and the lowest-frequency signal component.

Since the frequency of a signal is measured in hertz (the number of cycles of change per second), a given bandwidth is the difference in hertz between the highest frequency the signal uses and the lowest frequency it uses. A typical voice signal has a bandwidth of approximately three kilohertz (3 kHz); an analogue television (TV) broadcast video signal has a bandwidth of six megahertz (6 MHz) -- some 2,000 times as wide as the voice signal.

From too little (or nothing) to abundance: bandwidth!
Yet, this very important infrastructure, which telecommunications operators need so badly to provide a really broad range of services, to ensure that all countries are communication with one another in real time without losing any time or going through any stress, had remained a scarce commodity for operators in West Africa. Well, with the coming of Glo 1, all that is being consigned to history.

Technological developments have often been linked with the appearance of great civilisations. How important were new technologies for making metal tools and weapons in the days of yore? How did the ancient people, for instance, produce beautiful objects from precious stones, glass and other materials? What was the effect of new building technologies upon earth’s inhabitants? Did new technology improve the lives of ordinary people? Questions whose answers are as germane as the impact such answers have had on humanity over millennia.

Beyond The Call of Duty
In Finland, broadband is now a basic human right for the citizens. It may look farfetched for a country like Nigeria. But if a single company, like Globacom, can venture into, and actually launch a submarine cable, such a gargantuan project that has always been known to be actualised through a combination of forces, it is surely like going beyond the call of duty to provide broadband to West Africans in their teeming millions.

Besides ending the monopoly of NITEL through SAT-3, for instance, the Glo 1 cable thus establishes a new economic order for West Africa, by empowering its people through cutting edge communications where the governments have not been able to meet to the challenges of touching the lives of the people through communications by providing the much needed infrastructure.

It was therefore news worthy of all the champagne that West Africans can pop, when Globacom announced, first the landing of its Glo 1 cable in various countries in West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana, in September 2009. And now, it is even cheerier news, that the Glo 1 cable is ready for uptake by all who desire the infrastructure to provide any form of communications services that the project can carry.

“Glo-1 will provide the needed opportunity for West African countries and indeed Africa to leap forward economically through an excellent communication network and cost effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe and rest of the world,” a statement from Globacom reassured.
 
The commissioning of Glo 1 indeed goes to underscore Globacom’s resolve to build Africa’s best and biggest telecommunications company; ambitious as that statement and the goal may seem to the onlooker, step after step since it commenced operations in August 2003, Globacom has showed that it is not just ready to achieve the targets it has set out above, but will surpass such targets and set new ones.

To date, Globacom through its various operational areas, including mobile, gateway, broad access and now the phenomenal Glo 1 submarine cable, has its footprints well rooted in Nigeria, where it has become the default national operator, Benin Republic, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal and The Gambia.

For the Globacom Group, this is just the beginning!

Key milestone
Globacom Makes History with Glo 1 Submarine Cable

Glo-1 is the first successful submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria, and Globacom is the first individual African company to embark on such a project. In fact, all submarine cables in the world have been built either by consortiums or in collaboration with governments.

Therefore, the Glo 1 submarine cable, built by a single operating telecommunications company, will go down in history as the first to be built by one single company.
 
Glo-1 has the potential to provide high speed internet services, faster, more reliable and cheaper telecom services for the public. Glo-1 will potentially facilitate foreign investment and employment opportunities especially to Africans.

The 9,800 km long cable originates from Brud in the UK and it is laid from this origin to Alpha Beach in Lagos, where it will have its Landing Station.

Glo-1 will also improve teleconferencing, distance learning, disaster recovery and telemedicine among several other benefits for Nigerians and the people of West Africa.

Quotable

"One of the biggest, unique advantages of Glo 1 is its sole ownership which allows it to ride on the infrastructure of Globacom, Nigeria's, and perhaps West Africa's, most integrated telecommunication company.

"Glo 1 will provide the needed opportunity for West African countries and indeed Africa to  leap forward economically through an excellent communication network and a cost effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe  and the rest of the world.

“Glo 1 will aid on-line diagnosis and video conferencing during surgery and research, while distance learning will be made easy by enabling a class of students and lecturers in West Africa to participate in a real time class in Europe, America and any other part of the world.
“It will improve e-governance in areas such as on-line insurance and licence issuance and other government papers as well as boost entertainment and banking industries. It will also enable the establishment of effective and efficient call centres across the nation.”

--- Mohamed Jameel, Group Chief Operating Officer, Globacom, on the occasion of the commissioning of the Glo 1 submarine cable

Finally, This is The 1
‘With Glo 1, Globacom offers most guaranteed customer solutions’

The waiting is over for availability of bandwidth for telecommunications services in West Africa, as Globacom says its new Glo 1 submarine cable will offer customers the most guaranteed solutions to their business needs

On Tuesday, July 20, 2010, Nigeria’s Telecommunications Operator, Globacom, took journalists on a facility tour of the Glo 1 landing station in Lagos and noted that the multi-million dollar cable which has been tested and is now ready for commissioning has customised services to address the requirements of a wide segment of clients including telecom operators, oil and gas companies, manufacturers, government, education and medical institutions.

Group Chief Operating of Globacom, Mohamed Jameel, said that with the company’s extensive optic fibre backbone in Nigeria and terrestrial network in West Africa, there is a significant advantage to customers since Glo can provide connectivity right up to customer’s premises in these countries, including domestic long haul and last mile services. The customer is thus provided end-to-end solutions for his requirements.

“Glo 1 offers extremely attractive contractual and pricing options which can be tailor-made for individual customer requirements. This is backed by best Service Level Agreements (SLA) and professional account management. Indeed, Glo 1 offers the most competitive prices available in West Africa,” Jameel stated. Also, the SLA, which offers end- to- end connectivity, ensures better service delivery as there is no dependence on other networks.

“For carriers and major telecom companies across the world, Glo 1 allows the wholesaler dedicated access to bulk bandwidth for long periods of up to 15 years thus giving the customer certain unique advantages, including the right to lease that bandwidth to someone else.

“For GSM, CDMA, Wimax operators and ISPs, Glo 1 offers extremely attractive prices on both short and long term basis, resulting in enhanced profitability for the customer through flexible terms of contracts tailor-made for the customer type and requirement,” the GCOO added.

Other customised solutions to be offered by Glo 1 include Data Centres, Tele-Medicine, Video Conferencing, Virtual Private Network, International Leased Lines, Managed Lines and Call Centres.

With Glo 1, Data Centres can be connected to each other for disaster recovery efforts in locations across the globe. This will be extremely helpful to governments and corporate organizations. Medical information can also be transferred through interactive audiovisual media. Remote medical procedures or examinations will therefore be possible. “Glo 1 will aid on-line diagnosis and video conferencing during surgery and research, while distance learning will be made easy by enabling a class of students and lecturers in West Africa to participate in a real time class in Europe, America and any other part of the world,” Jameel explained.

Glo 1 will also facilitate premium video conferencing between multiple locations across the country. Videoconferencing uses telecommunications of audio and video to bring people at different sites together for a meeting. This can be as simple as a conversation between two people in private offices (point-to-point) or involve several sites (multi-point) with more than one person in large rooms at different sites. Besides the audio and visual transmission of meeting activities, videoconferencing can be used to share documents, computer-displayed information, and whiteboards.

The Globacom GCOO also guaranteed that anyone using Virtual Private Network (VPN) on Glo 1will get faster connectivity. The private nature of a VPN means that the data travelling over the VPN is not generally visible to, or is protected from, the underlying network traffic. Utmost confidentiality is therefore guaranteed.
The Glo 1 International private leased lines offer connectivity from West Africa to locations across the world. “Using our IPLC service, offices in Nigeria and other parts of Africa can connect to their offices abroad on a completely private circuit,” he said.

He added that the global connectivity ushered in by Glo1 will enable Nigeria and other West African countries to join the business revolution and build word class Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Call centres for business communities across the Globe. Big corporates can, therefore, outsource their redundant or regular routine jobs such as call centres, payroll processing and administrative duties to other companies. Glo 1 offers the international connectivity required for this.

Glo 1 also offers dedicated and managed hosting which requires excellent quality bandwidth with optimum reach to all Internet Data Centers across the Globe .This is achieved through peering with all Tier 1 carriers, reaching all major destinations in the world. Glo1 brings in this quality of service to Nigeria, thus enabling and enriching the business verticals.

Globacom: Mission to Empower the People ... Like Never Before

David, The Conqueror.
The story of David and Goliath is one that clearly describes the can-do spirit of man, and his desire to achieve when he really puts his mind to it. It started with the Philistine army who had gathered for war against Israel. The two armies camped for battle on opposite sides of a steep valley. A Philistine giant measuring over nine feet tall and wearing full armour came out each day for 40 days, mocking and challenging the Israelites to fight. His name was Goliath. Saul, the King of Israel, and the whole army shivered under the blasphemous words of Goliath; he was a giant, over nine feet tall with heavy built, no one would dare challenge him.

But David did. The youngest son of Jesse, David was sent to the battle lines by his father to bring back news of his brothers who were part of the army of Israel. David, only a teenager at the time, on getting there heard the shouting and cursing from Goliath, and he was shocked and angry at the defiance this giant had for the God whom Israel worships as Supreme Being. David looked around and asked, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of God?"

There and then David volunteered to fight Goliath. It took some persuasion, but King Saul finally agreed to let David fight against the giant. Dressed in his simple tunic, carrying his shepherd's staff, slingshot and a pouch full of stones, David approached Goliath. The giant cursed at him, hurling threats and insults.

David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied ... today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air ... and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel ... it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands."

As Goliath moved in for the kill, David reached into his bag and slung one of his stones at Goliath's head. Finding a hole in the armour, the stone sank into the giant's forehead and he fell face down on the ground. David then took Goliath's sword, killed him and then cut off his head.

When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. So the Israelites pursued, chasing and killing the Philistines, finally and plundering their camp.

The conquest of David is similar to the winning formula of a company like Globacom – a company defying the many snag of the environment, and going head-on to attack the giants of an industry, conquering all the seeming insurmountable challenges, and coming out victorious at the end – changing the rules of the business and doing what nobody else would have dared to do.

It is the can-do spirit; and in the Obama’s words, the ‘Yes You Can’ motto that has driven Globacom from glory to glory!

The Story of Glo
When Globacom, Nigeria's Second National Operator (SNO), which can now be rightly called the ultimate national operator, joined the cast of the telecommunications businesses on August 29, 2003, no one was certain how its journey would be – would it be encumbered with many challenges that would drive it through the wall of frustration or would it survive and go ahead to become a phenomenon in the sub-region? Only time would tell. And time did tell as Globacom marked the beginning of beautiful things in the lives of telecom users in Nigeria, and by extension, in Africa.

Globacom’s entrance was one that came with fanfare from Nigerians, being the only wholly Nigerian telecommunications network. The cost-expensive yet, money spinning telecommunications business with the larger-than-life image of existing operators was not a field for the faint-hearted. And coming two years behind these other two leading GSM operators, MTN and Zain (then Econet), it was a Herculean task awaiting the new entrant.

But Globacom was not in any way intimidated by the perceived challenges ahead. With its focus and set vision, challenges were just the catalyst to success against all the others to become the leading telecom business in Africa. It's emergence in the telecommunications market unarguably marked the birth of a truly pan-Nigerian telecommunications service provider.

GLO, a Nigerian multinational telecommunications company, with headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria currently operates in 4 countries in West Africa - Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Ghana and Ivory Coast. As of June 2009, the company has employed more than 2,500 people worldwide.

Indeed Globacom's entry could not have come at a better time, what with the near imperialism being suffered then by existing Nigerian GSM subscribers in the hands of the other two operators. They latched on the public euphoria of the availability of an almost elusive service to exploit innocent Nigerian subscribers.

At inception of GSM, SIM cards sold as high as N30,000. Operators insisted on Per Minute Billing (PMB), and argued that Per Second Billing (PBS) was an impossible tariff platform in Nigeria. Glo changed all of that by introducing the Per Second Billing system and slashing SIM cards incredibly to the marvel of all Nigerians and nay Africans. Every day was Christmas with Glo; the network brought succour and hope to Nigerians.

We remember the exciting ads on the PSB, one that readily comes to mind is the Charly Boy commercial where he rides on his bike to a banana sellers tray, pays for banana, eats half of it and returns the rest, collecting some change from the bewildered seller, and stating boldly, ‘you only need to pay for what you use.’

Before long the other operators joined Glo. They had no choice really, Glo was eager to beat them to the game. Now SIM cards are as cheap as a stick of lollipop! That revolution brought by Globacom has continued to positively grow the telecommunications sector in Nigeria. 

Glo demonstrates great potentials, great opportunities, drive for excellence and commitment to Nigeria. The authentic Nigerian company embodies the Nigerian spirit and tells the Nigerian story – a story of vision, courage, hope, passion and power. Its growth is the evidence of the capacity of Nigerians to compete with the best in the world.

Glo-ing in Sports
In fulfilment of its social corporate responsibility and in identifying with the game of football as the country's unifying factor, Globacom in the last couple of years, has been sponsoring Nigeria's premier football league and has continued to exhibit greater involvement in every international football engagement involving the country's national football teams. GLO sponsors sports events as a way to give back to communities within the countries they operate.

In Nigeria, GLO sponsors the Nigerian Premier League, Nigerian National Football Teams, Nigeria Football Federation(NFF), Glo Lagos International Half Marathon, Glo People Police Marathon, Eyo Festival, Ojude Oba Festival, Eleghe Festival and the Confederation of African Football African Player of the Year Award.

In the Republic of Benin, GLO sponsors the FITHEB and CAF African Player of the Year Award.

In Ghana, GLO sponsors the Glo Ghana Premier League, the Ghana National Football Teams and the CAF African Player of the Year Award.

In November 2009, GLO became an official sponsor of famous football club Manchester United. The sponsorship also includes young players from Benin, Ghana and Nigeria going to Manchester to train with the club

The Chairman of Globacom, Mike Adenuga, made headlines when the company secured the sponsorship and title rights of the Nigerian Premier League at an annual fee of N639 million for four consecutive soccer seasons.

In addition to the sponsorship, Adenuga has also hired a foreign technical adviser, Mr. Berti Vogt, for the National Teams, the Super Eagles in particular. The largesse includes a bumper pay for the technical adviser, accommodation in Lagos and Abuja and a befitting chauffeur-driven car.

CAF has awarded Adenuga, the Pillar of Sports in Africa for his strong support for African Football at both national and continental levels. Adenuga was presented the trophy at the opening of the 29th CAF General Assembly held in Khartoum on 10th and 11th February, 2007.

The Man – Otunba Mike Adenuga
The Mike Adenuga Group which is the umbrella for many thriving businesses comprises Equatorial Trust Bank (ETB), Conoil PLC, a petroleum marketing company, Conoil Producing, a crude exploration company, and Globacom.
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A native of Ijebu Igbo in Ogun State, Mike Adenuga Jr. was born in 1953, seven years before Nigeria’s independence, in the ancient city of Ibadan, into the family of Chief Mike Adenuga Snr., a school teacher and Madam Oyindamola Adenuga, a successful trader and Yeyeoba of Ijebuland.

He attended the famous Ibadan Grammar School, in Oyo State for his secondary education and furthered in Business Administration at Northwestern State University, Alva, Oklahoma in the United States. He also earned a Masters degree at Pace University, New York, majoring in Business Administration with emphasis on Marketing.

Otunba Adenuga oversees a vast business empire with investment in oil, banking, real estate, international trade and lately telecommunications. The chapters of his life will be incomplete without the mention of his sojourn abroad as a young man in search of opportunities. He was able to pay his way through school with money obtained as a taxi driver and a security guard at different phases of his life.

A man who thrives on hard work, Adenuga’s entrepreneurial acumen has earned him national/international success and attracted national attention as far back as 1991 when his Consolidated Oil Limited struck oil in commercial quantity. He is reputed to have distinguished himself in the business of importation at the young age of 22! And ever since, his vast empire continues to grow in leaps and bounds.

The man - Adenuga is a compendium of many things. He is a husband, father, benefactor, leader, role model, and an entrepreneur par excellence; one that can also be crowned as one of the pioneers of modern Nigeria economic development.

A man of abundant positive energy and immense personal drive, Adenuga has made giant strides in several business categories. Nigerians would probably remember him more for his timely intervention in the telecommunications arena, where he seems to hold the aces that determine the pace of play. Globacom’s historic introduction of Per Second Billing and subsequent crashing of SIM price was like an act carried out by a knight in shining armour to rescue a dying female; indeed he saved the Nigerian people from the brute charges of earlier operators. This did not only skew the GSM equation in its favour but has continued to hold a lot of implications for the fledgling Nigerian telecommunications sector.

The green colours of Globacom can well be described as an undying patriotism for his country, Nigeria. A firm believer of the Nigerian dream, Adenuga paves the way for many, giving spirit to the seeming bleakness of the people, championing the belief that only Nigerians can develop the country as no foreigner would do it for us.

He’s got the Midas touch as everything he touches turns to pure gold. He is truly the David of modern Nigeria, bringing down cities and frightful challenges as gargantuan and impossible as Goliath.

He has been honoured with the National Award of the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by President Obasanjo some years back and will go down in history as a man who shouted, ‘here I am,’ when life summoned.

Globacom Considers Glo 1 Cable a National Asset - Jameel
Exuding confidence, radiating joy and satisfaction, and, with a smile that underlines his clear understanding of the enormity of the tasks that come with the Glo 1 project, yet which also restates his and his team’s preparedness to deliver on promise, MOHAMED JAMEEL, Group Chief Operating Officer, spoke with MKPE ABANG on the arrival of the Glo 1 cable and what to expect. Breaking from the interview almost amid each answer to every question, yet maintaining the train of thought from where he left it, even as he darted in and out of his office to attend to issues that cannot wait another minute, JAMEEL’s mien reflects in no small way, the lofty dream that the founder and Chairman of Globacom, OTUNBA MIKE ADENUGA JNR had when he ventured into the once uncharted waters by any single individual; but which results are now to be available to all humanity. Here are excerpts from that brief but eventful encounter with JAMEEL:

Africa is agog with news of the arrival of Glo 1. When are we expecting the first order on Glo 1 from potential customers?
We are all set to go on this important project. The cable has been electrically tested and found absolutely okay. There are some more tests to be carried out on the cable. Currently our principal partners, Alcatel-Lucent, are doing all the tests. We expect the cable to be ready for carrying commercial traffic by the third week of August. And we hope we should be able to put live traffic on the cable between 15th and 20th of August.

How will Glo 1 impact telecom services in Nigeria, West Africa and the whole Africa?
It could impact in two ways: one is, it’s going to be the answer to the everlasting problem of Nigeria, which is bandwidth. As at today Nigeria is using satellite bandwidth which has technical limitations like latency, and so on; and the cost of bandwidth is also very high. So corporate Nigeria and Nigerian people as a whole will benefit through Glo 1 in many ways. For instance, for corporate Nigeria, there will be enough bandwidth to connect to the rest of Africa and to the rest of the world for seamless and fast data and voice communication and for any other means of communication; network offices, have video conferencing. The bandwidth of Glo 1 is supposed to help customers to come up with call centre options; it’s a big business all across the world, running call centres for various organisations, because a lot of business services are outsourced today, including teleconferencing and many more. But Nigeria was not able to venture into that because we didn’t have bandwidth here; but with the coming of Glo1 someone can put up a 1000-seater call centre and start answering calls for big banks, and international banks across the world. Telemedicine is another important service that we believe Nigeria needs because you have to refer to expert doctors across the world on patients’ history and test results, etc. So telemedicine is something that will come up in a big way with the coming of Glo 1 cable. Distant learning; Nigeria needs a lot of education materials, which are available across the globe. People should be able to sit in a classroom and listen to a professor talking from abroad for like two or three hours. Another aspect is data centres and disaster recovery. Nigeria today, like any other country, has so much of data; telecom companies, oil companies, banks, government, all have got data. And all these data are being stored currently in Nigeria at various locations. Such voluminous data need a backup somewhere, what they call the redundancy, geographical redundancy; so it’s better for an organisation to have data stored in Nigeria and mirrored somewhere in another country. That needs huge bandwidth. The banks have tons and tons of data; so with the Glo1 now available, they can have a disaster recovery centre in, say, Ghana, which will be connected online to Nigeria. So if you drop N5,000 in your account at a bank, at the same time it reflects at the data base in Ghana. So in that unlikely event of something happening to the database in Nigeria, you can still recover the entire data from Ghana. There are many more services that the coming of Glo 1 will now make both possible and enjoyable as you have it in other parts of the world. Take video conferencing, for instance. You don’t have to rush to London to meet somebody, spend all the money and time to go for a meeting; you just sit in front of the television and talk as if you are in London, that way you save a lot money. So the most important factor is Glo 1 will provide for everything like the ones I have mentioned and more. It will provide for very high speed internet. Today, when you go abroad and you use the internet, you feel so happy because the pages flip very fast. But in Nigeria it’s pretty slow because there’s shortage of bandwidth. So Glo 1 is bringing huge internet bandwidth which we propose to distribute to companies, business centres, even to individuals because Glo has fibre across Nigeria, so wherever, we can connect. We can reach individual customers at their homes, for IPTV, etc. There are so many applications that can reside on the Glo 1 network. And the actual bandwidth cost is going to be phenomenally cheaper. Today if you want something like 2 mpbs capacity on a satellite you may have to pay like $9,000 per month. Now, with the launch of Glo 1 we expect that the tariff will come to about 50 per cent cheaper than what it is today. It’s a high quality bandwidth; it’s high quality internet available at 50 – 60 per cent cheaper than what is available today. So overall we believe that Glo 1 will be useful for corporate Nigeria, governments, colleges, hospitals, petroleum companies, banks and also for individuals, in terms of all those translating to individuals and small enterprises, and so on. So, we see immense potential and immense opportunities with the launch of Glo 1.

Anybody that hears Glo mobile will want to go to the street and buy a sim card, when they hear Glo 1 which particular client will come to you to access Glo1?
The benefit of Glo 1 will reach the end user on the mobile phone; on the Globacom SIM card. Right from the man on the street that’s looking for high-speed internet, who is looking for video conferencing, video calling, to big corporate organisations; everybody in Nigeria can benefit from Glo1. A common man buys his SIM card and inserts in his phone; what is his benefit? The benefits are if he is a data customer, of course, we provide voice – voice is primary - if he is interested in browsing the net, checking his email account, a lot of things; he will see the difference in speed when we bring high speed internet bandwidth on Glo 1, which we will pass through our own infrastructure to reach the end user who is a subscriber or a mobile phone user. In all strata of life – small and medium business enterprise, business centres, now they can install conferencing equipment and offer connectivity to people, so if I want to talk to my mother in Port Harcourt I can ask her to come to a Gloworld conferencing centre in Port Harcourt at a given time, and I can talk to my mother as if I am talking face to face with her; that is the kind of quality people should expect. And that’s the kind of things that people can expect with the arrival of Glo 1.

You talked about availability of bandwidth with the coming of Glo 1. Do we foresee congestion on the Glo 1 cable any time soon?
I don’t think so. Glo 1 has got a huge capacity which of course can be expanded as and when the need arises. With the current bandwidth that we have, we strongly believe that we should be able to cater to Nigeria’s bandwidth requirements for at least 10 years. But even after 10 years, if the bandwidth requirement multiplies by two or three, we can quickly upgrade because the cable is already laid so we have to just add some equipment and the capacity doubles. It’s so convenient. As I said, if we need more, we can expand; but for 10 years there should not be any problem.

There’s been a lot of talk on broadband; will Glo 1 also help in the broadband revolution we are expecting?
Yes, of course; this is like a backbone. Any operation needs huge amount of bandwidth to backup because all these are being used by customers – at their homes, when they talk, when they work, you need a lot of bandwidth to back up all the data and take it across wherever they want to take it. So definitely it is going to help broadband business, it’s going to help small internet providers and that becomes a transport to carry all the information and data.

Will you also offer other telecom operators access to Glo 1 to boost their own operations?
Glo 1 is owned by Globacom; but all of us in Globacom do consider it a national asset. Of course we are in business, no doubt about that.  We see it like the road; you know, we all pay tax to help construct the road, so, it’s a national asset. So anybody, any operator, any company – big or small, even a small business centre, big businesses, governments, schools, other telecom operators, everyone can tap in. If a large telecom operator comes to us, we will be so happy for them to use it. We want everyone to use it. So, there’s no restriction and there is discrimination at all. Everyone is invited to come and use the Glo 1 cable.

What challenges do you foresee implementing this Glo 1 project?
We don’t foresee any challenge on the Glo1 cable itself – we’ve laid the cable, we are going to contract the maintenance of the cable to a company with experience in maintaining cables, a company that has got five to six ships docked all around the place where the cable is; so in the unlikely event of something happening, they can ask the ship to go there and repair it so that the downtime is very minimal. So, really we don’t expect any challenge; but if there should be a challenge, this could only be in the last mile. Today, if a customer says he wants high speed internet bandwidth and his office is in Sango Otta, for example, it’s possible for us to bring the internet from all the way from London through the cable to Lagos and take it to the place that is very close to him; but because I don’t have the last mile to connect we may have to use radio to connect. The idea is that we would always like to deliver bandwidth end-to-end on fibre. But the fibre availability at last mile could pose a challenge, we would like to give it to people end-to-end fibre, but we will have to sort that out as we go along. So, I can say that with the cable itself, there will be no challenges, except last mile connectivity, which we will have to deal with as each case presents itself. But in terms of adoptability I don’t see any problem; but last mile is what I see as an issue. Whenever we don’t have fibre we may have to use some other medium as the last mile. That’s the only challenge I see on Glo 1; otherwise on the technology, cable, maintenance, etc, I don’t see any problem at all.

On a very light note, how much is Glo expecting to make in the next one year from Glo 1?
We are not looking at it in terms of this or that million Naira or dollars. We expect something like eight to 10 lambda of bandwidth being sold in the first year of our operation. How much will that translate into Naira depends on the pricing. Obviously for customers who buy bulk it’ll be a different pricing from the customer who buys small bandwidth. We are not calculating in terms of Naira; but in terms of lambdas, yes, it would be eight to 10 lambdas in our first year of operations.

With cable, integrity of data is guaranteed

CHARLES ODIASE, who is charged with leading the Glo 1 Cable Project at this point in time, when the company must cater to the bandwidth needs of Africa and the world, from the shores of Nigeria, feels humbled by the opportunity afforded him with this assignment. And, in his appreciation of the duty at hand, ODIASE faith in the Globacom mission strengthens him as the cable becomes bother operational and commercially available. ODIASE spoke on the tasks at hand. Excerpts:

The Glo 1 cable is ready to roll. How prepared are you for this project?
We are very glad to announce that today the entire cable has not only landed but successfully installed, commissioned, tested to get IP voice connection across to the UK and US. In terms of readiness we are totally ready. Now we are just putting finishing touches; we insist on also training quite a good number of our own technical people to be full hands-on; and then in a couple of weeks as we speak, we’re rolling out commercial operation.

How do you feel being part of this groundbreaking project?
It is a huge privilege to be on this project at this time. I am glad that I was also one of the pioneer staff when Globacom took off; so, this is yet another rare privilege for me to be a part of this great project; it is a great challenge for me. I’ve looked forward to it and the exposure. Now the whole world is going to become even a smaller global village than ever before, and the opportunities are so humongous, so unimaginable. I believe that not so many people have an idea what the coming of a cabling system of this magnitude can do to a nation as a whole not to talk of a sub-region that we are affecting with our presence generally. I believe that it’s a huge opportunity for me. I look forward to it with everything within me.

Can we say that you already have orders in waiting?
From all over the world, a year before now, we have people talking to us. I have been fortunate to work at the retail side, I’ve also worked on the corporate sales side, and on the international gateway side. From a lot of the contacts we have internationally, we’ve had pressures; everyone wants to connect today if they get the opportunity to. We’ve had huge requests. People call from all parts of the world saying they want to set up data centres either in Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia; they are asking us when we are going to roll out in these places so that they can take advantage of the cable and bring the world closer to Africa. The reason why they are talking to us is because they know that we are making a major difference; because we are not just the only company operating a gateway today, we already have connection with many of these countries where we carry traffic for them across West African countries through the gateway channel that we already have; they are now more excited, looking forward to a proper cabling system that will enable that connectivity and properly enable them. Some of them have networks in many of these West African countries. They also have systems where they manage corporate organisations that are multi-national companies that operate in these West African countries. Glo 1 is the kind of company that they have been looking for who not only has a good presence in Nigeria but also has a presence in most of the West African countries in addition to having a complete terrestrial fibre base pan Nigeria, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

A lot of people talk about fibre, others talk about satellite. Does satellite take away anything Glo1 will be offering?
Not in anyway; the difference between a VSAT system and fibre system is that you have better integrity of the data or the voice when you’re on the cable or fibre system. It’s a far more reliable connectivity. That connection that it is bringing makes it a lot easier to carry so much capacity in terms of size, quality, in terms of being able to guarantee certain qualities. For instance we talk about having teleconferencing, it’s not as if you cannot do phone connections and have multiple connections from the voice side all over the world. But when you are doing video streaming, you find that a lot of attenuation, a lot of quality drops along the line because the huge capacity you need to do that you can’t easily get that from the clouds, which is where internet relies on for its capacity; you can’t carry so much of that load on it. For instance, if a bank is working in several parts of the world – there are a few banks here in Nigeria that have offices in London, New York, Gambia, Dakar, Senegal, Hong Kong, they are looking for opportunities for real-time to connect everybody to know exactly what’s happening to their business worldwide, they want a one-click away information. Where they don’t have to say, ‘sorry, in Nigeria right now it rained heavily, the VSAT connections are a bit shaky;’ or blame poor connection on severe weather conditions etc. When you go fibre, those issues are gone, because it is robust; it is safe, it is clean. You can maintain a very good VPN. The virtual private network is one area enterprises are looking forward to, that’s what they all use presently. A virtual private network ensures that all the integrity of the data you have can be encrypted such that only a few people have access to them. But where the same cloud that you are getting your data from can be entered into by anybody and hacked into easily just by anybody, all the controls are not in your hands any more. But when you are under the fibre angle it is pipe to pipe, everything is straight dug into your building. You have the capacity to do whatever you want to do. Once you have encrypted any information at all it, stays encrypted.

In the beginning...
Momentous Occasion…A New Dawn - Sangowawa

It was a day they had all waited for to witness the actualisation of  the dream of Globacom founder and Chairman, Chief Mike Adenuga Jnr. It was the day that the Glo 1 submarine cable landed in Lagos. That was September 5, 2009. MR. ADEWALE SANGOWAWA, Globacom’s Executive Director, Human Resources, spoke the minds of all others at the occasion, which took place at Alpha Beach, Lagos. Excerpts from his remarks:

I am immensely delighted to welcome you all on behalf of the Board and Management of Globacom to this historic event. It is a very happy day for us at Globacom and our joy knows no bounds.

This day will indeed go down in history as a momentous occasion for Nigeria, the beginning of a new dawn in telecommunications in the West African sub-region.
 
About two years ago when we commissioned the Glo 1 submarine cable project, many wondered whether Globacom, a fledgling Nigerian company, would be able to pull this ambitious project through. This concern was informed by the fact that never in this business has one company undertaken to embark upon this kind of gigantic project alone. Globally, the tradition is for a consortium of telecommunication companies to team up to set up a submarine cable network to enhance their connectivity and bandwidth capacity. And here was Globacom, a Nigerian company, barely four years old, taking on the whole world, so to speak! But yet again, Globacom has rewritten history. Just like we did with Per Second Billing, Glo has made possible that which was thought impossible.

Looking back now, it seems only like yesterday when we invited you to our head office to witness the contract signing ceremony between Globacom and Alcatel-Lucent, world leaders in submarine networks, to build the world’s first individually owned international submarine cable. And today, we are greatly delighted to have you as witnesses to the landing of Glo 1 in Lagos. Globacom has become the first company to achieve this feat. We have kept faith yet again with our tradition of being the first.

With Glo 1, Globacom has taken a huge leap to avail Africa the magical possibilities of broadband. Glo-1 Submarine cable connects West Africa to the UK and has landing points in Lagos and Bonny in Nigeria, Bude in London and Lisbon in Portugal (planned). Glo-1 is also deploying 16 branching units to connect countries in West Africa.

The 9800 km state of the art cable will enable Globacom to have a clear distinction in providing quality services through multiple redundant and high quality direct links to various countries across the globe and will enable it to interconnect with several international networks and leading traffic carriers in the world. The capacity of Glo-1 will fulfil the present and rapidly increasing high data requirement in the West African region.

Glo 1 complements our nationwide optic fibre cable, the first phase of which has been completed. The facility provides a better alternative for bulk voice and data transmission requirements than satellite and microwave-based transmissions.

Globacom has, through pioneering of these post-modern telecom systems, underlined its resolve to continue to offer Nigerians world class services. Only last month, we introduced two more innovative products, the In-flight roaming service on Emirate Airlines and the International MMS service.

The landing of the submarine cable coincides with our sixth anniversary. Like in the previous years, the past year was an eventful one. Last June, Glo Mobile Benin marked its first anniversary and is already the second largest operator in that country, while Glo Mobile Ghana is scheduled to start operation before the end of this year. Our fixed line service has also commenced operation for corporate Nigeria and will soon be formally launched in several cities in Nigeria. Because we owe our success to subscribers, we commenced the Text4Millions promotion which, as you know, is the biggest promotion in terms of the number of millionaires to be made, which is 103. So far, 58 Nigerians have won and received N1m each while the monthly winner of N10m has also received his prize.

As we enter into our seventh year in business, I wish to assure you all that Globacom will remain committed to our vision of building the biggest and best telecommunications company in Africa.

May I once again express our profound appreciation to the gentlemen of the media for your faith in Globacom and for your unparalleled support. It is our firm belief that we shall remain partners in development.

Thank you again for coming and for your kind attention.

How Glo 1 will benefit West African economy

Since September 2009, when the Glo 1 submarine cable arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, hopes for a more robust telecommunications services were raised to an all time; and this is for good reasons. With Glo 1, communication setups and services will undergo a huge qualitative and quantitative upgrade with the installation and integration of the Glo 1 submarine cable. Here are just a few of the areas that will receive transformation, among others:

Data Centres
Data Centres can be connected to each other using Glo 1 for any disaster recovery location across the globe.

Tele-Medicine
Telemedicine is a rapidly developing application of clinical medicine where medical information is transferred through interactive audiovisual media for the purpose of consulting, and using Glo 1 remote medical procedures or examinations would be possible. Glo 1 makes Telemedicine as simple as consultation between medical specialists in two different countries.

Video Conferencing
Glo 1 enables video conferencing between multiple locations across the globe. Videoconferencing uses telecommunications of audio and video to bring people at different sites together for a meeting. This can be as simple as a conversation between two people in private offices (point-to-point) or involve several sites (multi-point) with more than one person in large rooms at different sites. Besides the audio and visual transmission of meeting activities, videoconferencing can be used to share documents, computer-displayed information, and whiteboards.

Virtual Private Network
Using Glo 1 connectivity people using VPN would get faster connectivity. A virtual private network (VPN) is a computer network that is layered on top of an underlying computer network. The private nature of a VPN means that the data travelling over the VPN is not generally visible to, or is encapsulated from, the underlying network traffic.

International Leased Lines
The Globacom’s International private leased circuits, (IPLC) offer connectivity from West Africa to locations across the world. Using its IPLC service, offices in Nigeria and other parts of Africa can connect to their offices abroad on a completely private circuit.
 
Managed Hosting
Dedicated and managed hosting required excellent quality bandwidth with optimum reach to all Internet Data Centres across the globe .This is achieved through peering with all tier 1 carriers reaching all major destinations in the world. Glo1 brings in this quality of service to Nigeria, thus enabling and enriching businesses to realise their potentials while at the same time increasing their productivity and return on investment.

Call Centres

Understanding the importance of Glo 1

There have been questions upon questions centring on the phenomenal submarine cable by Globacom, simply called Glo 1. Officials of the company took time to provide answers to some questions that may agitate the minds of the telecom world in particular and the public in general:

What is Glo 1 and what does it mean for internet and data users in Africa?
Glo 1 is an undersea cable system connecting Lagos to London with landing stations in 14 African countries and further extending connectivity to all major countries in the world. It would change the entire telecommunication landscape of West African countries. They would now be connected to the rest of the world and would be at par with any developed nation due to the enhanced, faster, reliable, cost effective connectivity across the world.

What does it mean for the business, entertainment, education and technology sectors?
Every single business vertical would benefit from enhanced efficiency resulting from faster connectivity and extended reach across the world provided by Glo 1. Media, Entertainment, Technology are sectors in particular which will see a quantum leap in efficiency of their performance. Media and content development and distribution, online gaming, e-commerce, call centre business, distance learning, telemedicine etc are all areas which will be tremendously benefited by Glo1.

What are the social benefits that will be unleashed by Glo-1?
Easier and faster access to information, contents and applications will help the general public and education and development in schools, Universities and other Teaching Institutes to impart better educational services.

Telemedicine and technology consultancy will increase the performance of the healthcare sector. The fruits of this revolution will percolate down to all parts of the country through the terrestrial and wireless network of all communication companies and ISPs in West Africa. The rural information technology development would begin in a big way.

Who will use the Glo 1 cable?
Glo 1 will offer its services to any company requiring large volume bandwidth at competitive price. This typically means telecommunication operators, Internet Service Providers and large corporate or multinational organisations requiring data connectivity now have answers to all their bandwidth questions. This in turn will penetrate down to the consumer and small business levels across the landscape through multiple operators.
 
What specific advantage(s) does Glo 1 have?
Glo 1 is privately owned and is not controlled by any consortium. Glo1 is owned, operated and maintained by Globacom thus, proactive and very ready to react in its decision-making processes and execution of projects. 

How are submarine cables installed and repaired?
Submarine cables are laid using special cable laying ships. A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications. There are companies owning vessels specially equipped to handle any eventuality of service loss due to incidents in the sea. Marine maintenance is handled by them.
  
Who will monitor the Glo 1 Network?
The Glo 1 will be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week from its Network Operations Centre based in Nigeria by professionals having technical telecommunications and Telco specific customer service experience.
 
Who are the technical partners that built Glo 1 and who will maintain the Glo 1 Cable System?
Alcatel-Lucent are the technical vendors who built the Glo 1 cable system; they are also responsible for its maintenance.

Does Glo 1 provide IP connectivity?
Yes, Glo 1 is currently able to offer IP via Tier 1 interconnection partners. The management of Glo 1 has developed a comprehensive suite of IP services which are now available with the commercial launch this August, 2010.
 
How does Glo 1 intend to achieve high availability on its network?
The network is designed with a high degree of resilience in the network design and network monitoring and performance management on a 24x7x365 basis; that is, all year round optimal and optimised performance.
 
How is Glo 1 able to deliver capacity to destinations beyond London?
Glo 1 delivers capacity worldwide via our Tier 1 interconnection partners in Telehouse London that are able to provide onward connectivity extending to over 200 cities across the world.
 
How will Glo 1 ensure high availability of the undersea portion of the cable?
Glo 1 has signed a Cable Maintenance Agreement with a company specialised in this area of operation to ensure adequate responsiveness for cable repairs and maintenance.

 ‘Hello cable! Welcome Cable’

It was almost like Graham Bell making the first telephone call, “Watson, come here I want you” when Mrs. Mrs Gladys Talabi, Executive Director, Legal Services of Globacom called out when the Glo 1 submarine cable arrived in Lagos in September 2009 to celebrate the arrival of the long awaited cable.

“Hello cable! Welcome cable!” She said when the cable was finally pulled to Nigerian terrestrial shores.

Prodding the cable with her left foot; in a gesture that signified the first official contact between a Globacom executive and the 9,800km long submarine cable; the celebration of the final arrival to the ground of the submarine object has just commenced. Mrs Talabi had earlier sought from Bode Opeseitan, Glo mobile’s Head of Corporate Communications, if the Glo team have made provisions for a bottle of champagne to celebrate this momentous occasion in Nigeria’s telecom history.

Well, the unavailability of champagne did not rub the shine of the momentous occasion. Neither could the rain. For it was all gleams and smiles when, by 11:05 am, Mr. Peter Schubert, Senior Programmer, Alcatel-Lucent, contractors to Globacom on the project, officially handed over the Glo 1 cable to the duo of Mr. Adewale Sangowawa, Globacom’s Executive Director, Human Resources and Mrs. Talabi. Incidentally, Globacom’s Chief Technical Officer, is another Peter Schubert, he was also present at the grand event.

Shimmering in spite of the early morning absence of sunlight, the cable which they held in their hands momentarily had endured a two-year gruelling voyage from the United Kingdom to its landing point in Lekki, Nigeria; precisely at the Alpha Beach which is a prominent family and corporate rendezvous spot.

What they ceremoniously held in their hands before a battery of cameras that clicked away in frenzy; would in the nearest future change the technological landscape of Nigeria, and this much officials of Globacom are aware like other industry players.

Speaking at the launch, Mr. Sangowawa described the occasion as momentous, stating that it would go down in history as the beginning of a new dawn in telecommunications in the West African sub-region.

“About two years ago when we commissioned the Glo 1 submarine cable project, many wondered whether Globacom, a fledgling Nigerian company, would be able to pull this ambitious project through. This concern was informed by the fact that never in this business has one company undertaken to embark upon this kind of project alone. Globally, the tradition is for a consortium of telecommunication companies to team up to set up a submarine cable network to enhance their connectivity and bandwidth capacity. And here was Globacom, a Nigerian company, barely four years old, taking on the whole world, so to speak! But yet again, Globacom has rewritten history,” an elated Mr. Sangowawa said.

Speaking further, Sangowawa said: “With Glo-1, Globacom has taken a huge leap to avail Africa the magical possibilities of broadband. Glo-1 submarine cable connects West Africa to the UK and has landing points in Lagos and Bonny in Nigeria, Bude in London,” he remarked adding that a further landing point was being planned for Portugal. According to him, Glo-1 would deploy 16 branching units to connect countries in West Africa and beyond.

He also noted that the 9,800km state of the art cable “will enable Globacom to have a clear distinction in providing quality services through multiple redundant and high quality direct links to various countries across the globe and will enable it to interconnect with several international networks and leading traffic carriers in the world.”

The Globacom Human Resources Executive Director reiterated his confidence that the Glo-1 submarine cable would fulfil the present and rapidly increasing high data requirement in the West African region. He noted that it would complement the completed first phase of the telecom company’s nationwide optic fibre cable. “The facility provides a better alternative for bulk voice and data transmission requirements than satellite and microwave-based transmissions”, he observed.

Speaking on the capabilities of the Glo 1 submarine cable, Mr. Kayode Adebiyi, Project Manager, Glo 1 stated that the ultimate capacity of the submarine cable, which is 2.5 Terabits, is far more robust than existing ones which he estimates at 120 Gigabits. He stated further that while Glo 1’s reliability of 99.9 per cent is the preferred bandwidth medium when compared to VSAT which offers less than 99 per cent reliability.

He made a first business pledge to potential clients purchasing capacity from Glo 1 that they would experience delays less than 100 milliseconds when compared to the offerings of other submarine cables and VSAT, which he estimates at more than 300 and 600 milliseconds, respectively.

Mr. Adebiyi is convinced of the tremendous advantage that the cable system offers with a promise that the cost of leasing bandwidth and E1s would be priced to value which according to him is favourable to intending clients as other existing bandwidth lease initiatives are monopolies, thereby offering customers unfavourable pricing.

Full of enthusiasm, the Glo 1 project manager highlighted that while existing submarine cable projects have connectivity from South Africa to Portugal, the Glo 1 submarine cable project would have further connectivity extending beyond Europe to the United States of America, this will be in addition to its direct connectivity from Europe to Africa.

According to Mr. Adebiyi, on a larger national economic scale, the launch of Glo 1 would aid the Nigerian economy leap forward. He added that Glo-1’s unmatched high speed, reliable data would culminate in much more efficient use of resources for other forms of investment. Such other advantages would include elongated business plans as well as increased employment opportunities. “With the launch of the Glo 1 submarine cable, Globacom will reshape ICT systems in the West African region and open windows to a new world of magical possibilities,” Mr. Adebiyi concluded.

Further benefits to the industry of the cable are not lost on the project executors as Alcatel Lucent’s Peter Schubert identified that, “the landing of the cable will help boost the state accelerated broadband initiative (SABI) project to provide broadband for all.” SABI has been one of the main initiatives of the government through the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to further bring broadband connectivity to Nigerians especially those in the rural underserved segments.     

In another statement, Mr. Paddy Adenuga, Globacom’s Group Executive Director noted that the landing of the Glo 1 submarine cable will further affirm the pan-African focus of the company as the cable “will stimulate a new era of prosperity in the continent by offering cheap, fast and reliable international calls, unprecedented fast access to the internet and revolutionary data transfer.”

The younger Adenuga added that the cumulative effect of the huge bandwidth and cheaper rates Glo 1 would bring to the continent, “will empower Africans in the field of communications, education, agriculture, banking and health.” He listed some of the service offerings which the Glo 1 submarine cable would support to include teleconferencing, long distance learning, disaster recovery and telemedicine. “Distance learning will be made easy by enabling participation for a class of students and lecturers from different parts of the world in real time,” the Globacom Group Executive Director said.

Looking beyond the immediate response to the needs of the Nigerian economy and telecoms industry, Paddy Adenuga disclosed that Glo 1’s current and upgradeable capacity is enough to cater for Nigeria’s broadband requirements for at least the next 15 and 20 years. Stating that “Glo 1 will provide the needed opportunity for West Africa and indeed Africa to leap forward economically through an excellent communication network and a cost effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe and the rest of the world. With Glo 1, we will provide the most comprehensive international communication services on the continent to bridge the digital divide between Africa and the rest of the world.”              

Why go solo?
The Glo-1 submarine cable is Globacom’s gift to Nigerians who have remained committed to the Nigerian company; and the company’s approach was a deviation from the industry norm. While previous submarine initiatives are results of partnerships between governments and operators with diverse interests, the Glo 1 is the first such project embarked on solely by a telephone operating company.

So, why would a company commit huge resources into the laying of a submarine cable when there is an existing cable in the country? Well, it is still an unconfirmed report that at inception, Globacom had attempted to buy into SAT -3 directly, but the group of 23 countries that formed the SAT-3 consortium had allegedly rebuffed this move, instead it directed Globacom to purchase bandwidth capacity from NITEL, the first national operator which is vested with the sole right to control SAT-3 in Nigeria.

The closed consortium model which SAT-3 adopted forbids other interested parties from purchasing bandwidth directly from the consortium. Instead, they are directed to purchase bandwidth from incumbent national operators that make up the consortium.

Perhaps miffed by this arrangement, Globacom decided to embark on the massive project of laying its own submarine cable, one with a capacity to make the SAT-3 appear ordinary. Estimated to cost $250 million, the Glo-1 comes at a time when many operators in the country have gone to seek redundancy from satellite companies and alternative from neighbouring countries in the West Africa sub-region. And as they say, the rest, is history!

What’s in a name?
Simply named Glo 1, in line with the company’s flagship – Glo Mobile, if name is any way to determine the mind of an investor, then after Glo 1 there could be Glo 2, Glo 3 and so on. But for now, Glo 1 is one huge subsidiary from the communications empire which Globacom Nigeria represents.

Did you know?

It all started with a congested line which made it impossible for the Chairman of Globacom, Dr. Adenuga to make his call from his hotel room in the United Kingdom through to one of his executives in Lagos. In frustration he asked if nothing could be done to reduce or totally eliminate the poor connectivity across board for seamless, better and hitch-free communications.

And that was how the idea of building a multi-million dollar high capacity optic fibre came about. 

The 9,800 km-long cable which runs from Bude in the United Kingdom to Lagos, Nigeria with branches into 14 West African countries such as Senegal, Ivory Coast and Ghana berthed on the shore of Lagos in September 2009. This made Globacom the first single telecommunication company in Africa to own its international submarine cable. The multi-million dollar high capacity Glo 1 optic fibre cable will bring direct connectivity between West Africa, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world.

This singular effort will provide excess bandwidth to all the cities connected to the cable, and lead to a much faster and robust connectivity for voice, data and video. The facility which has already landed in several African countries will for the first time provide Africans at large an almost unlimited bandwidth and high-speed internet connection between the region and the rest of the world. This ultimately results to much faster, cheaper and reliable telecom services.

Glo 1 is expected to open a new era of abundant opportunities for Africa providing enough bandwidth for amazing services like telemedicine, distant learning, disaster recovery, and also video conferencing. All of these and more Glo-1 promises to provide for at least 10 years before any necessary upgrade to meet new markets. 

Globacom, while briefing the media on July 20, 2010 on the commercial readiness of the Glo 1 project, said the 9,500 kilometre state-of-the-art cable would enable it to have a clear distinction in providing quality services through multiple and high quality direct links to several countries across the globe. It added that the cable would enable it to interconnect with several international networks and leading traffic carriers all over the world.

The conference was manned by the Glo-1 army comprising the Group Chief Operating Officer, Mohamed Jameel; Executive Director Special projects, Mike Jitubo; Head of Glo-1, Charles Odiasi, and their partners from Alcatel-Lucent, described as the pioneers in submarine cables.

The GCOO admitted that Glo 1 would answer to the everlasting problem of Nigeria, which is bandwidth.

Glo-1, on its final commercial roll out, is poised to give wings to Nigerians and Africans as a whole. With the potential of the submarine cable, the world of impossibility is no more. Glo-1 will serve as the solution to West Africa’s bandwidth problems, and propel the continent to possibilities previously unimagined. 

Glo 1 Fact File

• A 9,800 kilometre long submarine cable to carry data and internet traffic between Nigeria and the rest of the world.

• The multi-million-dollar contract was awarded to telecommunication vendors, Alcatel-Lucent of France, world leaders in submarine cabling.

• It is the first such project embarked upon by any single organisation in the world. The practice all over the world is for organisations or countries to team up and build such a facility.

• Glo 1 provides connectivity from Lagos, Nigeria to Bude in the United Kingdom through fibre optic cable laid undersea. The cable which is of the 32 STM 64 type has virtual infinite capacity and therefore offers sufficient capacity for traffic for the Globacom’s mobile, fixed, and internet telecommunication services.

• Glo 1 offers 99.9 per cent up time reliability, world-class long distance voice, video and data communication services to the African customer.

• Glo 1 caters for long term bandwidth requirements for voice and data transmission in the West African sub-region. Presently West African countries have a high dependability on satellite based operators for fulfilling their bandwidth requirements. At present, bandwidth providers are retailing bandwidth they procure in bulk, which invariably is very expensive. Glo 1 fills this vacuum and will narrow the Digital Divide between Nigeria/Africa and the rest of the World.

• Provides a cost-effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe and rest of the world. It will also carry traffic for other operators that would lease the service.

• Alcatel-Lucent will provide one STM 64 submarine cable capacity from the United Kingdom to New York to connect Nigeria to the United States to provide crystal clear voice calls and high speed data/Internet transmission services.

• The Glo 1 project would reshape the face of telecommunications in Nigeria by offering unparalleled services to Nigerians.

• The undersea cable is designed with the latest technology and it is the first such state of the art submarine cable to connect Nigeria directly to United Kingdom and further to the United States, the two major data hubs of the world.

• It further enhances Nigeria’s capacity to provide telephone hubbing services for the rest of the world.

• Glo 1 enables Globacom to have a clear distinction in providing quality services through multiple and high quality direct links to various countries across the globe and allows it to interconnect with several international networks and leading traffic carriers in the world.

• The cable, with a final capacity of 640 Gigabytes, has landing points in United Kingdom, Portugal, Ghana and Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gambia, indeed, all countries in West Africa as well as in Lagos and Bonny in Nigeria.

• Landing points will also be extended to other African countries. There will be  over 18 branching units along the route of the project.

Flash back
Glo 1 will boost Africa's economic growth – Adenuga

September 5, 2009 was unlike any other day in the history of Nigeria’s telecommunications industry. It was the day that the Glo 1 cable landed in Lagos. And, it was an occasion to make merry; while at the same time raising the hopes of many a telecommunications subscriber. It was none other than the Executive Director of Globacom, Mr. Paddy Adenuga, who made the impressive remark on how Glo 1 will help in the growth the African economy.

The search for bandwidth capacity for reliable telecommunications services in Africa got a major boost on in September last year as Glo 1, the multi-million-dollar international submarine cable of National Operator, Globacom, landed in Lagos.

At exactly 10.50am, September 5, 2009 Alcatel-Lucent officials handed over the Glo 1 submarine cable to Globacom, signaling the birth of a new era in telecommunication in the continent.

The 9,800km-long cable from UK through Mauritania, Morocco and 16 West African countries with dedicated extension to New York, was anchored at its Landing Station at Alpha Beach, Lekki, Lagos.

The Glo 1 cable will deliver transmission capacity that will radically change Nigeria and Africa's economic landscape by providing unprecedented high speed internet services and make telecom services much faster, more reliable and cheaper for consumers.

In a statement to mark the landing of the cable, Globacom's Group Executive Director, Mr. Paddy Adenuga said Glo-1's current and ultimate capacity is enough to cater to the required broadband capacity of Nigeria for at least the next 15 to 20 years.

Glo 1 has a current capacity of 640Gigabit per second and an ultimate capacity of 2.5 Terabit per second.

Adenuga said, ”Glo 1 will provide the needed opportunity for West African  countries and indeed Africa to leap forward economically through an excellent communication network and a cost-effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe  and the rest of the world".

“The facility will provide the most comprehensive international communication services on the continent to bridge the digital divide between Africa and the rest of the World,’ he added.

Adenuga said Glo 1 has 99.9 per cent up time reliability, world-class long distance voice, video and data communication services for African customers, adding that the cable will support the large bandwidth requirements of direct consumers and other service providers.

He said the cable will free up resources for other forms of investments which governments and business developments need through broad market coverage at high capacity and at a fraction of cost and time.

Glo 1 will also facilitate foreign investment and employment opportunities in the sub region, he stated.

“In a nutshell, Glo 1 will stimulate a new era of prosperity in the sub-continent,” said Adenuga who added that the successful delivery of the cable has shown that Globacom has an awesome capacity to deliver complex projects.

Dwelling on Glo 1's specific benefits to Nigerians in particular and Africans in general, Adenuga said the cable will facilitate teleconferencing, distance learning, disaster recovery and telemedicine among several other benefits for the people.

“The facility will aid on-line diagnosis and video conferencing during surgery and research, while distance learning will be made easy by enabling the participation of a class of students and lecturers from different parts of the world in real time,” he explained.

Globacom and Alcatel-Lucent officials said the facility will be live in about six weeks when all the connections have been effected.

Alcatel-Lucent, the world leader in submarine cable installation which handled the project, congratulated Globacom for achieving the historic feat.

The Intrepid, the ship which brought the Glo 1 cable has left for Accra, Ghana to complete the Phase One of the installation in other West African countries including Senegal and Cote D'Ivoire. The landing of Glo 1 in Ghana will also boost the preparation for the nationwide launch of Glo Mobile Ghana.

Glo also said that the phase two of the submarine cable project will connect South Africa through Angola.

Glo said all its efforts are geared towards building the biggest and best telecommunication network in Africa and the network is already operating in Benin Republic.

Globacom started its operation seven years ago.

Regarded as Nigeria's most innovative network, Glo also pioneered the introduction of several other innovative services in Nigeria including Per Second Billing, Mobile Internet, Blackberry, Vehicle Tracking, Voice SMS and In-flight Roaming.

Flash back
Glo 1, dawn of a new era in Africa - Ghanaian Govt

When the Glo 1 submarine cable landed in Ghana, the country’s Communications Minister, Hon Haruna Iddrisu, spoke the minds of the country’s leaders, when he stated that it marked the beginning of a new era in Africa.

For the Ghanaian Government, the landing of Globacom’s multi-million-dollar international submarine optic fibre cable in Accra, Ghana, September, 2009 marked the beginning of a new dawn in the continent’s telecommunications industry.

Ghana’s Communications Minister, Hon Haruna Iddrisu, described the development as an added impetus for improved communication in Ghana in particular and Africa in general. “Glo 1 marks an important milestone in the telecoms landscape of Ghana in our quest to improve upon the delivery of improved communications infrastructure and services to enhance efficient and affordable data services and management,” the minister stated.

He congratulated Globacom for landing Glo 1 in Ghana and urged the global telecom giant to seize the moment to drastically reduce the wholesale international gateway connectivity prize which currently hovers around $4,500 for an E1 in Ghana.
 
Hon. Iddrisu, Globacom’s Group Executive Director, Mr. Paddy Adenuga, and the then Director General of National Communications Authority of Ghana, Bernard A. Forson  Jr. received the cable from Alcatel-Lucent officials at the Landing Station in Osu Ice Company Beach, Accra.

“Glo 1 will facilitate the expansion of market opportunities for broadband service providers and thereby help reduce transaction cost for broadband services,” he added.

Hon Iddrisu noted the Ghanaian government’s happiness that the cable will facilitate “world class, long distance voice, video and data communications services for Ghana,” stating that “Glo deserves commendation for this investment which is of immense economic value”.

The landing of the Glo 1 cable in Accra comes three weeks after it first berthed in Lagos, Nigeria. The cable had landed at Alpha Beach, Lekki, Lagos, on September 5. The landing of Glo 1 in Ghana will also boost the preparation for the nationwide launch of Glo Mobile Ghana.

The 9,800km-long cable was laid from United Kingdom through Mauritania, Morocco and 16 West African countries with dedicated extension to New York, United States.

In his remarks at the event, Mr. Adenuga said Glo 1 cable will deliver transmission capacity that will radically change Africa's economic landscape by providing unprecedented high speed internet services and make telecom services much faster, more reliable and cheaper for consumers.

He noted that the landing of Glo 1 in Ghana will also boost the preparation for the nationwide launch of Glo Mobile Ghana.

He said Glo-1's current and ultimate capacity is enough to cater to the required broadband capacity of Ghana and the rest of the continent for at least the next 15 to 20 years.

Glo 1 has a current capacity of 640Gigabyte per second and an ultimate capacity of 2.5 Terabyte per second.

Adenuga said, ”Glo 1 will provide the needed opportunity for Africa to leap forward economically through an excellent communication network and a cost-effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe  and the rest of the world".

“The facility will provide the most comprehensive international communication services on the continent to bridge the digital divide between Africa and the rest of the World,’ he added.

Adenuga said Glo 1 has 99.9 per cent up time reliability, world-class long distance voice, video and data communication services for African customers, adding that the cable will support the large bandwidth requirements of direct consumers and other service providers.

He said the cable will free up resources for other forms of investments which governments and business developments need through broad market coverage at high capacity and at a fraction of cost and time.

Glo 1 will also facilitate foreign investment and employment opportunities in Ghana and the African region, he stated.

“In a nutshell, Glo 1 will stimulate a new era of prosperity in the continent,” said Adenuga who added that the successful delivery of the cable in two countries has shown that Globacom has an awesome capacity to deliver complex projects.

Dwelling on Glo 1's specific benefits to Ghanaians in particular and Africans in general, Adenuga said the cable will facilitate teleconferencing, distance learning, disaster recovery and telemedicine among several other benefits for the people.

“The facility will aid on-line diagnosis and video conferencing during surgery and research, while distance learning will be made easy by enabling the participation of a class of students and lecturers from different parts of the world in real time,” he explained.

The Intrepid, the ship which brought the Glo 1 cable will depart Ghana to complete the Phase One of the installation in other West African countries including Senegal and Cote D'Ivoire.

Glo also said that the phase two of the submarine cable project will connect South Africa through Angola.

Globacom started its operation in Nigeria seven years ago, while it marked its second anniversary in Republic of Benin in June.

Globacom’s service landscape
Glo Broad Access
Fixed Line - Pre paid and  Post Paid
Broadband through ADSL
Office Centrex
Data Solutions
E1 PRI

Glo Mobile
3G Mobile Services
Fixed Wireless
Dual Mode Blackberry
3G HSI

Glo business solutions
MPLS VPN
Leased Lines
Managed Services
WDVPN
Hosting and Co-location services

Glo 1
Submarine cable from Lagos to London
Biggest IP service provider in West Africa
IPLCs, Global MPLS

Glo Gateway
International MMS
In flight Roaming
International Roaming
UK Top up

Glo 1 offers
Simple procedure and documentation for ordering and registering.
Single service provider and single point of contact for ordering, provisioning, maintenance and billing.
Quick connectivity- short lead time to connect.
Ease of scalability – fast capacity augmentation to handle surge in traffic
High availability of capacity.
Vast network coverage including domestic and international network.
Excellent Quality of service backed by service level agreements.
Competitive pricing.

Top Three Advantages with Glo 1
Reach directly to the last mile and your user base
West Africa’s composite communications network.
9800 km of own submarine cable connecting 16 West African countries with Europe and US.
Over 10,000 km of national fibre optic network already operational in Nigeria.
Capability to provide end-to-end connectivity on its own network.

Redundancy to support business-critical applications
Multiple landing stations planned in all operating countries to provide redundancy,
End to end ownership of the cable offering unique connectivity down the West coast of Africa to the rest of the world.
Investments underway in Benin, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast & Gambia to build a robust inland and sea connectivity.
Result will be round-West Africa redundant fibre ring

Access to business-enabling managed and cloud services
Data centres planned in multiple countries to provide consistent services and disaster recovery solutions.
Road map to deploy managed hosting and storage services, managed applications, CDN services and High Definition Video Conferencing
SLA based services managed across the region with a globally skilled workforce.

More advantages of Glo 1
Brand new cable system built with cutting edge technology backed by the rich expertise of Globacom having operations in four African countries.

Glo1 with its global partnerships with major carrier networks allows us to carry the global data traffic from West Africa.

Global reach with strong partnerships would result in best rates as the most efficient routes will be chosen with highest SLA.

Glo has operations in four West African countries as of now, this ensures last mile on its own network.

Attractive contractual and pricing options tailor made to suite your requirement in line to the demands for all on-net and off-net solutions.

Single window operations for connectivity to any part of the world.

Fully owned domestic infrastructure and international capacity on accomplished partners enables us to give end to end SLAs.

Brief history of undersea submarine cable system

A submarine communications cable is a cable laid beneath the sea to carry telecommunications between countries.

The first submarine communications cables carried telegraphy traffic. Subsequent generations of cables carried first telephony traffic, then data communications traffic. All modern cables use optical fibre technology to carry digital payloads, which are then used to carry telephone traffic as well as Internet and private data traffic. They are typically 69 millimetres (2.7 in) in diameter and weigh around 10 kilograms per metre (7 lb/ft), although thinner and lighter cables are used for deep-water sections.

As of 2010, submarine cables link all the world's continents except Antarctica.

The First Submarine Transatlantic Telephone Cable System (TAT-1), 1956 
Global telephone communications using submarine cables began on 25 September 1956, when the first transatlantic undersea telephone system, TAT-1, went into service. This site is the eastern terminal of the transatlantic cable that stretched west to Clarenville, Newfoundland. TAT-1 was a great technological achievement providing unparalleled reliability with fragile components in hostile environments. It was made possible through the efforts of engineers at AT&T Bell Laboratories and British Post Office. The system operated until 1978.

The first transatlantic telephone cable, TAT-1, inaugurated the modern era of global communications. Many of the basic concepts and processes developed for achieving highly reliable submarine infrastructure have not changed significantly from those used in TAT-1. Before TAT-1, voice was carried across the Atlantic on unreliable and expensive radio channels. Text messaging was carried on submarine telegraph cables (the technology of the previous 90 years) which were reliable, but slow and expensive.

Cooperation between North America and the United Kingdom to build an electrical bridge across the Atlantic had gone back over a century. After a period of failure and learning, the Great Eastern, the world’s largest ship, laid in 1866 the first permanent transatlantic link under the leadership of Cyrus Field, and telegraph communication began. However, the communication capacity of the first transatlantic cable was very limited while the demand for rapid communication continued to increase.

Telegraph systems developed steadily over the years. Advances in materials and techniques, such as inductive loading, led to gradual increases in performance to the point that, in 1919 a study of deep-water submarine telephones began. In 1928 this work culminated in a proposal for a repeaterless cable bearing a single voice channel. Two considerations, however, killed the project: radio circuits were continuously improving, and the cost estimate was $15 million, a prohibitive price tag after the economic collapse that began in 1929.

A commercial radiotelegraph service, which began in 1908, had greatly contributed to transatlantic communication. Transatlantic long-wave and short-wave services had been established in 1927 and 1928, respectively. The first commercial voice link across the Atlantic, which was launched in 1927 with a single radio telephone circuit, shed new light on the desirability of a transatlantic telephone cable. While radio circuits provided a voice service, the vagaries of sunspot and seasonal and daily variations were never overcome entirely. Moreover, radio did not guarantee its users privacy and security. Recognition of the technical limitations of radio for transatlantic telephony led to studies of the feasibility of a North Atlantic submarine telephone cable.

In the mid-1930’s electronic technology had advanced to the point where a submarine cable system with repeaters, electrical devices that would boost voice signals after they had reached the fading point along a circuit, became feasible. Since the repeaters had to have sufficiently long lives to operate with small likelihood of failure over a period of time, they were subject to rigid reliability requirements. Most fragile, however, were the vacuum tubes, which were the only means of amplification. Development of these tubes was begun in 1933, and they were continually tested for a period of eighteen years.

The North American side utilised the flexible repeater technology in the 1950 Havana-Key West cable, which adopted an earlier version of the TAT-1 repeater. British Post Office had developed a single repeater system and used it for shallow-water links in the 1940’s.

In 1953 the agreement for the first transatlantic telephone cable was signed. TAT-1 was a joint effort of AT&T Bell Laboratories, the British Post Office Engineering Department, and the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation. The design of the TAT-1 repeater provided a unique solution to the historic challenge of placing a telephone cable two and a half miles beneath the surface of the North Atlantic. The repeater was flexible thus allowing it to be wound over a cable standard drum. It was eight feet long and had a diameter of 2.875 inches tapering down to the cable width of 1.625 inches over 20 feet.

The main Atlantic link, designed by the Bell System, called for two cables (one in each direction of transmission), which embodied one-way flexible repeaters at 37-mile intervals. H.M.T.S. Monarch, then the world’s largest cable ship, laid the two cables in the summers of 1955 and 1956, respectively.

The links were from Clarenville, Newfoundland to Oban, Scotland. Each cable had fifty-one repeaters in a cable stretching over approximately 1950 nautical miles. The repeater provided 65 dB of gain and 144 kHz bandwidth around 164 kHz. Amplification in each repeater was made possible by means of three vacuum tubes, whose design, testing and manufacture set new standards of reliability.

The vacuum tubes of the original TAT-1 never failed in twenty-two years of continuous service from 1956 to 1978. TAT-1 also included an overland portion and an underwater link. The Canadian provided an overland line-of-sight radio system from Nova Scotia to Montreal and to a point in Maine where the Bell System took over. Under the shallow waters of the Cabot Straits, British-pioneered two-way rigid repeaters allowed transmission from Newfoundland to the mainland through Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia over a single cable. TAT-1 initial service provided twenty-nine telephone circuits between London and New York, six circuits between London and Montreal and a single circuit split among the three destinations for telegraph and other narrow band applications.

Over the last fifty years since TAT-1 went into service, the capacity of telephone cables has grown explosively from initial thirty-six voice-band channels to modern broadband optical fibre systems. Today, single cables can support eight fibre pairs and carry in excess of eight terabits of capacity across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, which is approximately four million times the number of voice circuits carried on TAT-1.