The GLO-1 (Globacom-1) submarine communications cable is a cable system along the west coast of Africa between Nigeria and the UK, owned by Nigerian telecoms operator Globacom.
The submarine cable system is 9,800 km long, and became operational in 2011 with a minimum capacity of 640 Gbit/s.
A project of Globacom, Nigeria's 2nd largest telecoms provider, total capacity of the system is now advertised as 2.5 Tbit/s. The cable's link To Ghana was turned up in April, 2011. [1]
The main cable landing points are:
In February 2018, The Sunday Times reported that the infrastructure for the UK landing site of the Apollo, GLO-1 and Europe India Gateway cables had been found almost entirely unprotected. Their reporter was able to reach the premises without being challenged, and found the door to the generator room unlocked and left ajar. Vodafone, who manage the facility, said that he had not reached critical equipment and "would not have been able to interrupt the operation of the facility." [2]
List of international submarine communications cables
Individual cable systems off the west coast of Africa include:
Nigeria is Africa's largest ICT market, accounting for 82% of the continent's telecoms subscribers and 29% of internet usage. Globally, Nigeria ranks 11th in the absolute number of internet users and 7th in the absolute number of mobile phones.
SAT-2 was a submarine communications cable linking Melkbosstrand, South Africa, to El Medano, Tenerife Island, Spain and Funchal, Madeira islands, Portugal. It was 9,500 kilometres (5,900 mi) long, contained 82 repeaters, operated at 560 Mbit/s and was in service from 1993 to January, 2013. It is the property of Telkom SA Ltd, Telefónica, Marconi, British Telecom, France Cables et Radio, and Deutsche Telekom.
ATLANTIS-2 is a fiber optic transatlantic telecommunications cable connecting Argentina, Brazil, Senegal, Cape Verde, Spain's Canary Islands and Portugal. It is the first submarine cable to link South America and the African continent.
SAT-3/WASC or South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable is a submarine communications cable linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa, with connections to several West African countries along the route.
The Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is an undersea fibre optic cable system connecting countries in Eastern Africa to the rest of the world.
Apollo is an optical submarine communications cable system crossing the Atlantic Ocean, owned by Apollo Submarine Cable System Ltd. It consists of 2 segments North and South, creating two fully diverse transatlantic paths.
Globacom Limited, commonly known as Glo, is a Nigerian multinational telecommunications company founded on 29 August 2003 by Mike Adenuga. As of June 2018, the company employs more than 3,500 people worldwide.
The Internet in South Africa, one of the most technologically resourced countries on the African continent, is expanding. The internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .za is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (.ZADNA) and was granted to South Africa by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1990. Over 60% of Internet traffic generated on the African continent originates from South Africa. As of 2020, 41.5 million people were Internet users.
Telecommunications in Ivory Coast include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.
The Main One Cable is a submarine communications cable stretching from Portugal to South Africa with landings along the route in various west African countries. On April 28, 2008, it was announced that Main Street Technologies has awarded a turnkey supply contract for the Main One Cable System to Tyco Telecommunications.
Europe India Gateway (EIG) is a submarine communications cable system that connects the U.K., Portugal, Gibraltar, Monaco, France, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and India.
The West Africa Cable System (WACS) is a submarine communications cable linking South Africa with the United Kingdom along the west coast of Africa that was constructed by Alcatel-Lucent. The cable consists of four fibre pairs and is 14,530 km in length, linking from Yzerfontein in the Western Cape of South Africa to London in the United Kingdom. It has 14 landing points, 12 along the western coast of Africa and 2 in Europe completed on land by a cable termination station in London. The total cost for the cable system is $650 million. WACS was originally known as the Africa West Coast Cable (AWCC) and was planned to branch to South America but this was dropped and the system eventually became the West African Cable System.
Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) is an optical-fiber submarine cable system serving 24 countries on the Europe, west coast and south Africa, managed by a consortium of 20 members.
Broadband is a term normally considered to be synonymous with a high-speed connection to the internet. Suitability for certain applications, or technically a certain quality of service, is often assumed. For instance, low round trip delay would normally be assumed to be well under 150ms and suitable for Voice over IP, online gaming, financial trading especially arbitrage, virtual private networks and other latency-sensitive applications. This would rule out satellite Internet as inherently high-latency. In some applications, utility-grade reliability or security are often also assumed or defined as requirements. There is no single definition of broadband and official plans may refer to any or none of these criteria.
Equiano is a private transatlantic communications cable that connects western Europe (Portugal) with southern Africa. Branching points along the way connect to Togo, Nigeria, the island of St. Helena and Namibia.
Phase 3 Telecom is an aerial fiber-optic network infrastructure provider, providing connectivity, network management, and data storage services to wholesale, enterprise, and retail customers across West Africa. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria. Licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission in 2006 - the company in 2014, 2018, and 2022, added more kilometers to its existing coverage area with footprint expansion of its backbone, enterprise network, and broadband services. Phase operates 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) and counting open-access aerial fiber-optic network. The company, for over two decades has been vital to growth in Africa's growing ICT market, implementing the Wire Nigeria Project—conceived by the Nigerian Communications Commission to help provide broadband communications access to rural communities. Phase 3 has a broad range of wholesale and enterprise clients including Glo, MTN, 9Mobile, Ntel, Airtel, Smile Communications, World Bank, Julius Berger, Unity Bank, etc. Some of the African countries where the company currently has partner operations include Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and the Republic of Niger.
West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) operates as a wholesaler, providing capacity to international telecoms, cloud operators, content providers and internet service providers within and out of Africa. WIOCC offers carriers connectivity to over 550 locations across 30 African countries – utilising more than 75,000 km (47,000 mi) of terrestrial fibre and 200,000 km (120,000 mi) of submarine fibre-optic cable. WIOCC's international network reach currently extends to 100 cities in 29 countries in Europe and more than 700 cities in 70 countries globally.
The DARE submarine communications cable is a planned cable system along the east coast of Africa between Tanzania and Yemen managed by a consortium of 7 operators.