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Glo’s 9,500km submarine cable project ready next year – Jameel

By Jonah Iboma

Published: Wednesday, 23 Jul 2008

The 9,500-kilometre submarine telecommunications cable being laid by Globacom to connect Africa with Europe and the United States is nearing completion.

A statement on Tuesday by the company said the Group Chief Operating Officer of Globacom, Mr. Mohammed Jameel, made this disclosure in Accra, Ghana at a press conference where the GSM licence won by the company was formally presented by the country’s National Communications Authority.

The submarine cable project, which is costing about $250m, will run from London to 14 West African countries, with a dedicated link to the United States. It is expected to reach Ghana by May 2009, and shortly after, Nigeria .

The completion of the project, according to Jameel, will revolutionise telecoms services on the continent, and make them truly affordable to individuals and corporate bodies.

It will also enable more services and products to be introduced by Globacom.

Jameel promised that Glo would not disappoint the people of Ghana as it would replicate its success story in Nigeria and Benin Republic by giving the people value for money.

He said Glo would start operations in Ghana by the end of the year, and hoped to hit a subscriber base of two million in two years.

According to him, in Ghana, Glo has already gone to work to make this dream a reality. This, he said, would enable many Ghanaian businesses and individuals derive maximum satisfaction from Glo’s services.

He added that Glo had applied to the NCA for a 3G licence, which he was optimistic it would get soon to improve its services together with the cable connection to make bandwidth available for businesses that required it.

These, he noted, would help Glo to provide high-speed Internet connectivity, data and voice transmission.

He commended NCA for making the licence bidding process “extremely transparent” as the authority kept to the timeline for issuing the licence as advertised.