Globacom Receives Accolades as ATCON Celebrates Heroes of Telecoms

Globacom and its founder, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr. were at the weekend recognised for their catalytic role in the growth and development of the nation’s telecommunications industry.

The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) accorded Globacom a pride of place in a publication celebrating the agents of the revolution that transformed the telecom sector from a 400,000-line to 162 million-line industry in roughly 15 years.

The occasion of the public presentation of the book at Lagos Oriental Hotel, Lekki was chaired by former Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, while the Minister of Communications Technology, Chief Adebayo Shittu, was a Guest of Honour.

According to the publication, Globacom since inception has pioneered a long list of innovations, which have not only led to the rapid development of Nigeria’s telecommunications sector, but have also helped to fuel the company’s rapid growth and expansion.

The publication recalled that Globacom introduced per second billing in Nigeria when competition said that it was not feasible. That feat, consequently, made it much easier for Nigerians to get value for money by paying only for the exact time spent on calls, the book stated.

The book further documented the fact that Globacom crashed the cost of GSM SIM and tariff from N20,000 and N50 per minute respectively to as low as N200 and 5 kobo per second, thus helping to aggressively boost telephone penetration in the country.

Other early revolutionary products pioneered by Globacom in Nigeria included Blackberry, vehicle tracking, mobile internet, mobile banking, multimedia messaging service (MMS), in-flight roaming services, voice SMS, Magic Plus and Text2email, among others.

The book also documented Globacom as the first and the only operator so far with a wholly-owned submarine cable, Glo-1, linking Europe and America to West Africa to ensure the availability of bandwidth to enterprise customers in West Africa.

It was the first to launch 4G-LTE network in 33 cities in Nigeria in 2016. Recently, the company scored another first by introducing the novel concept of creating a dedicated path in its 4G LTE network for enterprise customers.

Globacom recently flagged off the laying of Glo 2, the first submarine cable in Nigeria to terminate outside Lagos. This capital-intensive project is hoped to boost access to bandwidth in areas outside Lagos, especially the oil platforms and under-served communities in the southern parts of Nigeria.

The book lists all the individuals and their companies with a summary of key contributions they have made to the telecommunications industry in Nigeria.