Deepening Data Penetration

As Globacom celebrates its 21st Anniversary on August 29, the company has assured Nigerians of continued improved data connectivity and uninterrupted data service delivery that will boost broadband penetration in Nigeria, by leveraging emerging technologies, writes Emma Okonji

Glo1, which is a 9,800km stretch of undersea cable that was single handedly built by Globacom, and laid between the United Kingdom and Lagos, berthed on the shores of Lagos in 2010, with the primary objective to increase data penetration within Nigeria and to connect Nigeria and Nigerians to the rest of the world through high speed data connectivity.

Since the landing of Glo1 in Nigeria in 2010, it has further deepened data and broadband penetration by crashing cost internet bandwidth and providing data access to many Nigerians at affordable rate, through its special data plan.    

Between 2010 and 2012, Nigeria had only SAT 3, Glo1 and MainOne submarine cables, but today, Nigeria has six undersea cables currently operating in the country and the space is still opening up. Before Glo1 and MainOne berthed, there was SAT3, but its capacity was not enough to address Nigerian connectivity needs. After Glo1 and MainOne berthed, Nigeria had the West African Cable System (WACS), and later the African Coast to Europe (ACE) Cable, promoted by Dolphin Telecoms, and later Equiano Cable, promoted by Google.

Impact of Glo1

Speaking about the impact of Glo1, since it berthed on the shores of Lagos in 2010, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Glo1, Mr. Daramola Ayobami, told THISDAY that the Glo1 submarine cable has several landing points along the West African coast, which helped Nigerians to have seamless connectivity for voice and data services between Nigeria and the rest of the world.

According to him, Glo1 landing point in London, houses one of the biggest data centres in London, called the Tele House, which connects the entire world.

“When Glo1 berthed in 2010, the demand for bandwidth was low at that time, but as the demand for bandwidth applications increases over the years, as a result of the presence of Glo1 in Nigeria, Glo1 also increased its capacity significantly to support different banking applications, e-commerce business, e-learning and telemedicine among others. In 2019, Glo1 further increased capacity, and as at today in 2024, the Glo1 capacity has been further increased enormously and this has opened a vista of opportunities for business and corporate organisations to do more with data connectivity, which is an enabler to the Nigerian economy.

Before the launch of Glo1 in 2010, businesses and corporate organisations were running their applications on satellite, which has bandwidth constraints, but with the berthing of Glo1, businesses now have unlimited access to bandwidth, which further deepened broadband penetration in Nigeria,” Ayobami said.

Resilience

In March this year, Nigeria and some other West African countries suffered internet outage for days as a result of cable cut in the Red Sea, which affected other submarine cable operators except Glo1 and Equiano that were not affected. According to Ayobami, when the cut and eventual data disconnection occurred I March, Glo1 had huge capacity on its subsea fibre cable, because it was not affected and Glo1 was able to supply connectivity to most of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to sustain their customers.  

“From the design concept of Glo1 to its implementation and rollout, the company was able to put certain measures in place to fortify and to create that resilience in Glo1 submarine cable, hence we were not affected by the undersea cable cut in March. Globacom leveraged technology to fortify its undersea cable. Again, since 2016 till date, Globacom, has marked eight years of uninterrupted connectivity.

Throughout this period, it has maintained an excellent record in the provision of internet access for both customers in Nigeria and across Africa. It lived up to expectations in March, this year during the widespread internet disruptions as result of cuts to other submarine cables in Nigeria and West Africa,” Ayobami said.

The resilience of Glo1 facilities have been attributed to its robust construction and durability by industry experts. To further enhance its capabilities, Globacom upgraded the Glo 1 submarine fiber cable infrastructure, optimizing its utilization and service delivery, leading to provision of direct, low-latency connectivity to London and ensuring ultra-fast and reliable internet access.

The upgrade further complements Globacom’s continuous network expansions and upgrades, targeted at ensuring customers’ unique calling and browsing experiences.

Reiterating the capacity of Glo 1 to provide tailored solutions to meet the diverse needs of various clients across different sectors of the economy, including oil and gas, manufacturers, government institutions, educational establishments, and medical facilities, Ayobami explained that the Glo1 cable supports key applications such as teleconferencing, distance learning, disaster recovery, and telemedicine, benefitting communities across Africa.

Globacom has sole ownership of the entire Glo 1 infrastructure, spanning access systems, national fiber-optic backbone, international gateways, international cable networks, and data centre services. The comprehensive ownership enables Globacom to offer Glo 1 clients a unique advantage through last-mile and domestic long-haul services, as well as wide presence and fiber-optic networks.

Pricing

Speaking about pricing as a key factor to deepen broadband penetration in Nigeria, Ayobami said Glo1 had always been disruptive operator by design, with the primary aim to crash price and make cost affordable to all. According to him, Globacom did it with voice call by crashing cost of voice calls when it introduced per second billing system from inception in 2003, when other telecoms operators were billing in minutes and had said per second billing was not possible. For the data market, Globacom, through Glo1, also crashed cost of data when it berthed in 2010. Before Glo1 berthed in 2010, two megabyte satellite capacity was sold $40,000, but Glo1 made it easy for corporate organisations to buy bulk capacity at affordable cost, the reason why most of the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Nigeria are buying internet broadband capacity from Glo1.

Glo1 also provide capacities to all the major Tier1 carriers across the world like Vodafone among others.      

Last-mile Connectivity  

Glo1 is a business unit of Globacom and Globacom is a national network operator in Nigeria with expansive fibre network backbone across Nigeria, which makes it possible to connect to people and organisations in any part of Nigeria, including last-mile connectivity. Unlike other submarine cable operators that do not have mobile network to transmit the capacity of its submarine cable, Globacom owns Glo1 and uses the Globacom mobile network to transmit Glo1 submarine cable capacities to the hinterlands and last-mile. Glo1 is berthed in Lagos, but by design, it can provide last-mile connectivity to the hinterlands, using the Globacom mobile network that is spread across the country, and that is an advantage that Glo1 has over other subsea cable operators. Aside connecting the hinterlands and last-mile connectivity, Glo1 provides connectivity services to customers in neighbouring countries like Niger Republic.

Emerging Technologies

Glo1 is ready to leverage emerging technologies like 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), among others to drive broadband connectivity. The Globacom mobile network business is already moving towards the adoption of 5G, and Glo1 is making available the data capacity that will support the advancement of 5G and other emerging technologies.

The customer feedback on Glo1 has always been excellent, In March this year, when there were major cuts on some submarine cables that did not affect Glo1 submarine cable, the customers that Glo1 was able to reconnect to its Glo1 network, were full of praise for Glo1 for restoring connectivity to them, and we get commendations from customers we provide connectivity services to, about the speed of connectivity that they enjoy as well as the uninterrupted services they get from Glo1. We also get letters of commendation from business partners that write to commend the connectivity service offerings they get from Glo1. We also listen to their complaints and move swiftly to address their challenges in real time, Ayobami told THISDAY in an interview.

Investments in Data Infrastructure

According to Ayobami, many have said investment in telecoms infrastructure is declining in the last 18 months, but for data infrastructure, I can assure Nigerians that investment is rather growing because Glo1 and other submarine cable operators have continued to invest in data infrastructure. When Glo1 berthed in 2010, Nigeria had just two submarine cable, which are SAT 3 and Glo1, but today, investment in data infrastructure has driven the number of subsea cable operators in Nigeria to six and more are still planning to berth submarine cable in Nigeria. The existing six submarine cable operators have continued to invest in the expansion of their connectivity services and I have earlier explained that Glo1 has continued to invest and expand in this direction. Glo1 for instance, have invested millions of dollars to increase capacity in Glo1. Although the economic climate in Nigeria may not support investments from some business owners, but Glo1 is not resting as it continues to invest to expand the data capacity of Glo1. We are working to meet the demands of the business and the market in order to satisfy customers. Glo1 recently completed its upgrades, which ran into millions of dollars and we will continue to invest, Ayobami insisted.

Challenges

The major challenge faced by telecoms operators, is the rising cost of providing services to the people, and even in the midst of the rising cost, telecoms operators have not increased tariff.

Giving insight to the challenges, Ayobami said: “There has been several tariff increases across various sectors of the Nigerian economy that are affecting the cost of providing data services to customers, like hike in petroleum products such as diesel, which is used to power telecoms Base Transceiver Stations (BTS), commonly known as base stations, yet telecoms operators have not increased tariff since the last 12 years, and this is already affecting the revenues of telecoms operators including data service providers like Glo1. However, Glo1 is not looking at the short term gains, but the long term gains and the ability to satisfy our customers. Again, another challenge that we face as fibre cable operators, is sabotage to our fibre cable infrastructure and we spend huge amount of money to maintain and keep the fibre cables up and running. We suffer cable cuts a lot on the terrestrial axis than the aquatic axis.

“On the terrestrial axis for instance, fibre cable operators suffer damages to fibre cables during road constructions, and such damages affect service quality and most times, it affects connectivity. In most cases, there are willful destructions of the cables by social miscreants who make all manners of demands from the operators.

“On the aquatic side, most times the destruction on undersea cables is caused by fishing trawlers and natural disasters such as earthquakes. Based on the terrestrial damage, we have raised advocacy to make telecoms infrastructure a critical national infrastructure to avoid willful damages. Once government passes it into law, it will deter vandals from destroying telecoms infrastructure in the country.”

Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway

Still speaking about the challenges faced by fibre cable operators, Ayobami said all the subsea cables that berthed in Lagos would be affected by the planned Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway, because the cables were routed from the shore of Lagos to the hinterlands and they were routed across the mapped areas for the construction of coastal highway from Lagos to Calabar.

“Immediately the federal government announced plans to begin the construction of the coastal highway, we engaged with the Federal Ministry of Works and the contractor that is to handle the project, which is HiTech to ensure that subsea cables are no affected during the construction. Although the impact on Glo1 cable will be very minimal, but the impact will be huge on other submarine cable operators, hence the Federal Ministry of Works has asked subsea cable operators to reroute their landing stations and cables before the construction commences, and that will be huge cost on the operators,” Ayobami said.

He however explained that the landing stations and cables of Glo1 would not be affected, because from the beginning, Glo1 did environmental impact assessment because it had prior knowledge that the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway has been gazetted, even though it did not know when it will be implemented.

“So what we did was position our landing stations in areas that is away from the map of the coastal highway, but our fibre cables connecting the landing stations to the hinterlands will be affected and we have engaged vendors to reroute the Glo1 terrestrial fibre cables from the corridors of the coastal highway,” Ayobami further said.