Cable company upgrades submarine cable network

Communications services and data center provider, MainOne, announced on Sunday the completion of an upgrade carried out on its submarine cable network between Nigeria, Ghana and Portugal to step up its capacity to 100G wavelength.

The upgrade put in place using the Xtera Nu-wave Optima optical networking platform is expected to provide support for additional capacity for MainOne’s high-bandwidth services.

“We are starting to see an information explosion in West Africa that has brought about a dramatic increase in network traffic this year and this has highlighted the need to scale up our network for future demand. As a leading provider of data capacity to 8 countries in West Africa, and with the pending integration of our NigerCam system to Cameroun and Nigeria’s South-South region, we needed to deploy more advanced technology to reliably meet our customer’s need for advanced and robust communications services. This upgrade to 100G provides MainOne the platform to further deepen broadband penetration in West Africa and meet the demands of our growing wholesale data business," said Funke Opeke, CEO, MainOne.

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“Xtera is extremely pleased to help MainOne upgrade its subsea cable infrastructure between Nigeria and Portugal. New capacity will be added during this upgrade by deploying our high-capacity, long-distance optical networking product, Nu-Wave OptimaTM," said Jon Hopper, CEO Xtera, according to a report by Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

“The use of this advanced, field-proven multi-purpose platform will allow MainOne to introduce 100G services and support the development of digital economy in western Africa.”

The MainOne submarine cable system links West Africa to Europe, running from Seixal in Portugal through Accra, Ghana to Lagos, Nigeria.

The cable system first went live in July 2010, becoming the first private subsea cable to offer open access broadband capacity to West Africa.