New Investments to Expand Glo Market Share

Globacom has said it was determined to innovate and redefine its network for wider reach, optimum quality of service, greater data speed and larger capacity in 2019.

Going by the current level of new investments in network infrastructure the company said it was set to take a greater share of the voice and data market in 2019, a new technical roadmap from the company has revealed.  According to the company, in the last ten months, about 26 cargo aircraft from around the world  brought  over 2,600 tons of network equipment into the country for them.

 “As a result, activation is looking up, traffic into the network is going up and consumption is up,” the Group Chief Technical Officer of Globacom, Sanjib Roy, told journalists yesterday in Lagos at a briefing session.

 Giving details of the upgrade, Roy revealed that new e-band radio technology had been deployed, resulting  in increase in bandwidth from 400mb to 1.5 – 2gb. for the Lagos, Oyo, Ogun and Rivers areas. Also supplied and deployed are 1000 microwaves ordered to modernise the transmission network to IP. He said the upgrade in other parts of the country were ongoing.

“The Glo 1 submarine cable capacity has been upgraded to 300G all the way From Lagos to UK, giving huge bandwidth for mobile and Enterprise business.

“In order to further firm up network uptime and provide seamless connection at all times,  the company had further deployed more than 2000 new generators  and 6000 new batteries while  site distribution of fueling contractors has been streamlined, thereby removing all obstacles to BTS site operations. This has led to better availability of the network. Meanwhile work is on-going on more than 1000km of fibre  route where road construction had affected the fibre  cabling.

“To further deepen data network quality for subscribers, deployment of high wattage Radio Remote Units (RRU) for 3G services and multi-sector antenna has been concluded  for better 3G indoor coverage, high speed data download, signal quality and network coverage.

“For improved backhaul, Globacom is further upgrading the capacity of existing  microwave links, converting TDM  links to IP for 2G and 3G, and is deploying high capacity microwave back up links to increase data back haul capacity and protect traffic against fibre cut,” he explained.

Despite these improvements, Globacom says it was not slowing down on investments as it had ordered 750- 3G multi-sectors  and 700 high capacity CE boards to further boost data speed around high traffic areas. Network quality is to be further boosted with another order for 1710 Base Station Equipment and  2200 high capacity Node B. The Node B provides the connection between mobile phones and the wider telephone network. These will help boost the network in key population areas.

Globacom’s investment roadmap shows that in 2019 , Globacom is planning for a bigger and better future. “We are using a scientific and methodical way of rolling out new sites based on feedback from the regions on where the sites are needed to address  customer complaints”, he stated.

In the 2019 roadmap, more than 400 sites are to be rolled out based on field feedback while roll out of LTE in 1800mhz band in major cities is to be intensified to allow higher handset adoption for the lower rung of the market. Also, new enterprise products to cater to the needs of SMEs and to create the digital environment for business growth in rural areas, is also in the works.

Globacom revealed that its second submarine cable, Glo2, would be rolled out this year to give fillip to overall socio-economic development  of the delta  regions and also provide the much needed bandwidth for local ICT   businesses to flourish. The facility will also provide back up for the terrestrial fibre route from Port Harcourt to Lagos.

Other new initiatives planned for this year they said include conceptual launch for 5G in 700mhz band for Internet of Things application, introduction of new data analytics  tools to capture subscriber experience in real time.