MainOne to Land in PH, fetes Accra Customers

MainOne Cable, West Africa’s pioneer open access submarine cable company is firming up more deals to have its presence felt outside Lagos by landing in Port Harcourt, Rivers state before end of 2012, Nigeria CommuniationsWeek can report. Our exclusive scope at the company’s Victoria Island headquarter revealed that MainOne was working assiduously to ensure that the 1.92 tb/ps undersea cable which landed in Lagos in 2010 was extended beyond the coastline of Nigeria’s commercial capital. “We are trying to ensure that our cable lands in Port Harcourt before the year runs out. As you are very well aware, there is so much bandwidth capacity in Lagos, but outside here nothing seems to be happening by way of spreading telecom infrastructure and services,” the source stated exclusively. MainOne which has its undersea cable running from Seixal, Portugal to Lagos has already commenced operation in Accra, Ghana. It recently hosted its Ghana-based ISP partners and other enterprise concerns to a Customer Appreciation Breakfast. Speaking at the event, which held at the Alisa Hotel, Accra, the Ghana Country Manager, MainOne Cable, Joseph Odoi, said the Breakfast was an avenue to express appreciation to the ISP partners and customers of MainOne who have been instrumental to the quest of the company in accelerating broadband penetration in Ghana. Landing in Port Harcourt, regarded as one of Nigeria’s biggest commercial cities outside of Lagos; and the nation’s unofficial oil and gas headquarters would enable MainOne access this near virgin market. Port Harcourt and the entire South/South Eastern region remain untapped business goldmine. “There is so much concentration in the Lagos market, and right now I can tell you that we are running out customers in this market. So there is a need to look beyond Lagos, and one of the first places we want to land is Port Harcourt,” our source stated. Telecom industry experts have previously called on government to enable dormant infrastructure spread to the hinterland to accelerate broadband penetration. Other cable companies like Phase3 and Suburban are also in the process of buying bandwidth from the undersea cable providers and distribute upland. All these efforts however have not yielded positive results and most Nigeria outside Lagos remains in dire need of broadband access. Besides MainOne, there is also Glo1 undersea cable provided by Nigeria’s second national carrier, Globacom which also landed its cable in 2010. A third by a consortium of mobile firms led by MTN Nigeria was billed to land in the second quarter of 2012. “It is an exploratory landing we would be undertaking, because unlike Lagos, nobody is sure about the region. Outside of Port Harcourt, I really don’t see many opportunities,” our source stated. But he could just be undervaluing the South/South East market. A thorough analysis of the two regions that would be served by the landing of the undersea cable in Port Harcourt shows that there is a lot of potentials to be tapped. For instance, around Port Harcourt, Rivers state alone are towns like Finima which houses West Africa’s largest natural gas facilities. Bonny also house some the continents biggest oil fields and facilities with several expatriates’ domicile as staff. There are also other sea port cities like Warri and Calabar. Calabar, the Cross Rivers state capital is one of Nigeria’s finest tourist destinations with its industrial facility of Tinapa built to be West Africa’s Dubai. Uyo and Eket, cities in Akwa Ibom state are emerging as strong southern cities with commercial viabilities. The South East region which boast of several commercial towns like Aba, Onitsha, Nnewi and Enugu are waiting in the wings to be exploited. Landing undersea cable in Port Harcourt close by could be an elixir for new business opportunities and expansion of existing ones.