Nigerian submarine cable company, MainOne, has announced that it had landed its submarine cable in Grand Bassam, Cote D’Ivoire.
The Grand Bassam landing, which is part of the company’s ongoing expansion plan to extend the reach of the cable into Cote D’Ivoire and neighbouring countries, came after the recent completion of a landing in Dakar, Senegal.
According to MainOne, this Grand Bassam landing is peculiar because it is the first commercial cable in service to deploy spectrum sharing capabilities guaranteed to deepen infrastructure sharing and lower the cost of delivering broadband services to West Africa.
The connectivity: MainOne made known that the cable would be connected to an existing branching unit on the MainOne cable trunk already strategically located offshore. The upgrade of the electronics on the cable and the implementation of spectrum sharing functionality would now enable multiple operators, as availability of such increments in capacity is expected to further accelerate the deployment of 4G services in addition to fixed broadband across the region.
The newly constructed MainOne data centre in Abidjan would also have a role to play in the connectivity as the submarine cable would be connected to the data centre alongside the cable landing station to house infrastructure and facilitate the growth of the digital economy in Cote D’Ivoire.
While speaking on the new development, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MainOne, Funke Opeke emphasized the role which broadband infrastructure plays in driving the growth of digital economy and economic development.
“We recognise the role that broadband infrastructure plays in driving the growth of the digital economy and economic development in the 21st Century and are excited that we can enable these investments in Cote D’Ivoire. We look forward to energizing the digital ecosystem, not just in Cote D’Ivoire, but also in neighbouring countries as we bring the new submarine cable connection and Grand Bassam data centre into service.”
