Globacom Starts Operations

The West African telecommunications giant, Globacom, has launched its footprint onto the Ghanaian market with its data service, Glo One, after much anticipation of its entry as the sixth licensed mobile telephony company in the country.

The company chose to start its grand entry into Ghana with its 640 gigabyte per second 9,800 kilometre long fibre optic sub-marine cable to facilitate a more reliable telecom connection with Europe, the Americas and the rest of the world with much speed and efficiency.

The Globacom submarine cable connects 14 West African countries to Portugal, the United Kingdom and Spain, with a dedicated connection to America and Asia. It is the first time a single company has piped a submarine cable all by itself, as the practice has been to do it as a consortium.

Globacom will benefit a large number of users including internet service providers, telecom companies, oil and gas companies and the mines. Glo1 has already captured supply to three large users of its fibre optic cable in Ghana.

“The Globacom submarine cable has the infinite capacity to trigger an unprecedented social and economic revolution not only in the telecommunications sector but also in the agricultural, transportation, medical, hospitality and tourism as well as educational sectors,”

the Group Chief Operating Officer of Globacom, Mr Mahamed Jameel, said at the grand launch of the service into the country on April 8.

The cable which can have its capacity expanded to 2.5 terabyte per second, is expected to provide the most efficient internet and data connectivity between Ghana, West Africa and the rest of the world with an additional proposition that can transform lives through expanded business deals for private and public sector actors.

Globacom says it had already connected a vast majority of the country with terrestrial fibre optic cables to provide a seamless connectivity on the Glo1 network, which Mr Jameel said “farmers in different regions for instance will now be able to access high yield seeds from any part of the world to enhance economic power.”

Globacom officials took turns to thank the people and government of Ghana for their immense support for the project. “We are happy that we delivered on this complex project and we thank you for your faith in us and for supporting the Glo-1 dream,” an Executive Director of Globacom, Mr Adewale Sangowawa, said.

He said Africa would have the opportunities of the magical possibilities of broadband, as the Glo1 submarine cable also had 17 branching units connecting countries in Europe, North and West Africa with dedicated extension to the United States.

The Deputy Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Mr Houlin Zhao, said he was impressed with the progress made in Ghana on the telecom front, where the cost of access to broad band had fallen from 131 per cent of average monthly income in 2008 to 80 per cent of monthly income in 2009.

“I am convinced that the launch of Glo1 submarine cable will do much to reduce costs further,” Mr Zhao said.

Such high speed bandwidth has been expected in Ghana to power some of the developments on telecommunications front such as business process outsourcing (BPOs), data centres, call centres and telemedicine.

The high-speed submarine cable that provides data will be the fulcrum around which Globacom would launch its mobile network in Ghana, which officials say would happen in a matter of months.