NCC, ALTON, MainOne back Oketola's book on tech evolution - ITREALMS

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The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr. Aminu Maida, has confirmed his participation as the immediate past Editor of The PUNCH, Dayo Oketola, launches a book on Information and Communications Technology evolution.

The book, ‘The Catalyst: Nigerian Tech Evolution Through a Journalist's Lens,’ will be launched on September 17, 2024, at an exaugural lecture to mark the end of Oketola's time as Editor, The PUNCH and celebrate his nearly 20 years in journalism and leadership practice.

MainOne expands global interconnection capabilities on Equinix fabric - ITREALMS

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The West Africa’s leading connectivity and data center services provider, MainOne has enhanced interconnection capabilities by using Equinix fabric to extend its network reach and provide its enterprise customers, reports ITREALMS.

This, officials at MainOne hinted comes with with agile, on-demand and seamless connectivity to cloud providers, remote markets, and local infrastructure over the MainOne network and onto Platform Equinix.

MainOne launches Fiber Infrastructure at the Lagos Free Zone - ITREALMS

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MainOne, West Africa’s leading connectivity and data center solutions provider, has announced the expansion of its fiber optic network infrastructure to the Lagos Free Zone in Lekki.

Orange, MainOne partner on West Africa submarine cable - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Orange and MainOne Cable Company are pleased to announce that they have signed an agreement allowing for a major investment by Orange in the West Africa submarine cable system, MainOne, reports ITREALMS. Through this partnership Orange will acquire additional capacity, thereby reinforcing its position in the African telecommunications ecosystem. MainOne’s current cable system comprises a 7,000km submarine cable, which was launched in 2010 and has landing stations in Nigeria, Ghana and Portugal. The partnership between Orange and MainOne Company will provide for the construction and installation of two new branches and stations. These will connect the cable to Dakar in Senegal and Abidjan in the Côte d’Ivoire by mid-2019. Orange will be the owner of the cable station in Dakar. Orange’s investment represents a major milestone for this project. Orange Marine, a 100% subsidiary of the Orange Group, has been chosen to manage the installation of these two new branches. Connectivity, capacity & growth opportunities Thanks to this new cable connection, local populations will benefit from better connectivity, lower prices and access to new services. Orange will benefit from multiple Terabits per second of additional bandwidth for the development of fixed and mobile data in Africa. More specifically, this cable extension is an opportunity to improve connectivity and offer a broader range of services for both Orange Côte d’Ivoire & Sonatel. In addition, MainOne offers an alternative route that guarantees the protection of voice and data traffic passing through the other cables in the area – SAT3 WASC SAFE and ACE. A key asset of the Group's broadband network in Africa Through this new partnership, Orange confirms its position as a leading player in the submarine cable market. In this role, the Group aims to develop the quality of service of its worldwide networks and facilitate the use of new digital services for end-users. Orange has a strong commitment to the African continent, which has been at the heart of the Group’s strategy for the last few decades. The Group is investing heavily in building infrastructure and providing access to communication services over the long-term. "Orange's ambition on international networks is both to meet the needs of our affiliates in their interconnection with the Internet world and to increase our leadership on the international data services wholesale market. This partnership with MainOne will allow us to strengthen our presence, with new significant assets in West Africa,” said Jérome Barré, Chief Executive Officer of Wholesale and International Networks. “The development of new digital services in Africa has fostered huge social and economic developments over the past few years. As barriers to access continue to fall with improved networks and more affordable equipment, Orange, as part of its multi-service strategy, is seeking to position itself as an important partner in the continent’s digital transformation Through this new partnership, Orange is set to secure and improve direct access to high-speed broadband services in two of its most important countries, Senegal and the Côte d’Ivoire,” said Alioune Ndiaye, Chief Executive Officer of Orange Middle East and Africa. In her comments, MainOne’s Chief Executive Officer Funke Opeke reiterated the company’s vision for a connected West Africa: “MainOne continues to lead the digital transformation of our sub-region by investing in affordable connectivity to drive economic development. Our objective is to bridge the digital divide between and within West Africa and the rest of the world. We are committed to deepening broadband penetration across West Africa and believe our investments in technologically advanced subsea infrastructure will continue to liberalize the international bandwidth market, further support Orange and other wholesale customers, and ultimately result in improved digital services in the region”. Orange is present in 20 countries in Africa and the Middle East and has 119 million customers (at 30 June 2018). With 5 billion euros of revenues in 2017, this zone is a strategic priority for the Group. Orange Money, its flagship mobile-based money transfer and financial services offer is available in 17 countries and has 38 million customers. Orange, a multi-services operator and key partner of the continent’s digital transformation, provides its expertise to support the development of new digital services in Africa and the Middle East.

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Ogun State enters Smart City map with MainOne partnership

ITREALMS:

The gateway state, Ogun State has entered the list of Nigerian states warming up for smart city with its latest partnership with MainOne, reports ITRealms.

MainOne, a communications service and network solutions company, ITRealms gathered, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ogun State government to build two hundred and fifty (250) kilometres of Optic Fibre cable to further enhance internet connectivity for service institutions in commercial areas of the state, with a view to becoming the smart city.

While signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Secretary to Ogun State Government, Barrister Taiwo Adeoluwa, explained that technological infrastructure was part of the efforts of the government to take the State on the technological highway, and pave the path for Smart City development in Ogun State. According to Adeoluwa, MainOne would invest in building broadband infrastructure in Ogun State while Ogun State Government would enable ICT development by ensuring free Right of Way (RoW) to the company to ensure the success of the project.

The SSG who also hinted that the agreement would ensure the construction of data centre in Sagamu interchange said the target of the government was for Lagos to be feeding on Ogun. In his words, “We’ve been working hard and desperate to leave a system-driven environment. The MoU we have signed in the short term is for a 30-year tenure and that would tell you we’ve not done it for ourselves but for the benefit of Ogun State, our youths and children unborn.”

“Today, we are taking Ogun State to the next level, people still have no idea of what is erupting at the Business District but we what are doing now is in line with our resolve to deploy bigger infrastructure to support technological investors in the state. MainOne would be giving us points in 12 locations now; our model schools would be connected, the secretariat would be connected and other public buildings’’, Adeoluwa noted.

With this partnership with MainOne, Ogun State has joined the Smart City State train and is poised to enable its emergence as a leading technology hub in Nigeria, similar to MainOne’s initiatives in Yaba’s Innovation Hub. Experts believe this project will greatly improve quality of life for Ogun indigenes and accelerate the digital transformation of businesses across the state.

Ayo Midele/GEE

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MainOne powers Social Media Week'18 with free Wi-Fi

ITREALMS:

MainOne has provided internet connectivity to participants at Social Media Week Lagos as the exclusive technology partner, through its provision of Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) access, reports ITRealms.

This connectivity, ITRealms gathered is the third consecutive year, the West Africa’s leading connectivity and data center solutions company is partnering Social Media Week.

MainOne also said that the partnership targeted at delivering true value to the organizers and event guests was designed and installed an advanced managed Wi-Fi solution at the event venue, providing up to 1Gbps data capacity unhindered and free to users throughout the facility and for dedicated livestreaming of the event.

Attendees at the event leveraged MainOne’s unlimited access to the Internet during the event and took advantage of the opportunity to freely browse the Internet and engage on social media platforms. The organizers of the event also used the unlimited capacity to provide livestreaming to thousands of participants not physically present at the event.

Speaking during the sidelines of the event, Head of Marketing at MainOne, Tayo Ashiru described the event as an industry platform to help people and businesses connect and share trends, ideas and inspiration focused on improving better efficiency in a hyper-connected world.

He revealed that the company’s continuous support for Social Media Week Lagos, underscores its belief that with the right connections, businesses can be catalyzed and industries are transformed with huge benefits for the economy.

The Social Media Week Lagos is Africa’s largest tech and digital media event and usually convenes business leaders, global thinkers, entrepreneurs, Fintech firms, and media entrepreneurs.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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Disruptive author, Oranye, to lead speakers @MainOne’s Nerds Unite 2018

ITREALMS:

The author of Disrupting Africa: The Rise & Rise of African Innovation, Nnamdi Oranye has been confirmed as the keynote speaker at the 2018 Nerds Unite being hosted by MainOne, reports ITRealms.

Oranye would be supported by speakers from Avanti, SAP Africa, Wema Bank, Andela and Microsoft, IXPN, among others, with the theme “Radical Digital Transformation.”

ITRealms also gathered that the event slated for Friday, 23 February in Lagos, is expected to bring together over 500 mid to senior ICT executives across multiple industries for intense innovation sessions featuring latest best practices and emerging trends in data center, collaboration, enterprise networking and cybersecurity among hot topics.

Nerds Unite is also expected to provide unparalleled networking opportunities with all these professionals under one roof.

ITRealms reports that the radical digital transformation being witnessed globally in recent times is the key focus of the event. The event will have four predominant discussion tracks: “Disrupting the Nigerian ICT industry”, “Radical Digital Transformation: Perspectives across industry players”, “Digitalization and Business” and “The future of mobile content delivery in Nigeria”, with discussions led by executives from leading companies exploring various industries and the digital transformation altering industry verticals.

Just as the event participants will also be empowered with technical insights on the latest trends as it relates to the realities of the Nigerian environment and how these can be adopted for improved efficiencies for their respective organizations.

Created by leading provider of network and data center solutions, MainOne and its partners for ICT Executives, Nerds Unite is an annual technology conference hosted by MainOne which brings ICT Professionals across sectors together for impactful technical knowledge sharing sessions and social networking.

Last year, the event featured the first ever showcase in Nigeria of Microsoft HoloLens, the world’s first self-contained holographic computer running Windows 10, in addition to representation by the Internet Society and a keynote by Microsoft.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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MainOne, Tizeti partner Facebook to give access to 13 Lagos Mainland suburbs

ITREALMS:

The leading connectivity and data center solutions provider, MainOne and Tizeti have concluded collaboration with Facebook to enable the expansion of internet services in some 13 Lagos Mainland suburbs, reports ITRealms.

This, ITRealms gathered would make Internet service accessible across Lagos Mainland including Ajao Estate, Surulere, Ikeja, Omole, Magodo, Gbagada, Oworonshoki, Bariga, Anthony Village, Ogudu, Ojota, Ketu and Alapere.

Also, the partnership will leverage MainOne’s fiber connectivity, Tizeti’s twenty brand-new solar-powered towers, and Facebook’s Express Wi-Fi; resulting in internet services will be more accessible across aforementioned parts of Lagos Mainland.

Chief Executive Officer, Tizeti, Kendall Ananyi, said, “Access to fast and reliable unlimited Wi-Fi connectivity has been a problem for most Nigerian residential customers and small businesses for too long. This partnership aims to demonstrate a sustainable and cost-effective solution to the under-served areas of Lagos State through our solar-powered, always-on Wi-Fi towers, and robust internet bandwidth from MainOne.”

Tizeti has built and will operate the solar-powered Wi-Fi Towers across Lagos while MainOne will provide multiple Gbps internet bandwidth to the outdoor towers via a mix of fiber-optic and microwave backhaul connections. This internet service will be delivered to end users via Wi-Fi, including via Express Wi-Fi hotspots deployed by Tizeti in Lagos. This partnership supports the three partners’ shared goal of connecting more people to high quality internet services in the most cost-effective way.

MainOne’s Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Funke Opeke, lauded Tizeti and Facebook’s commitment to improving the quality and lowering costs of Internet services in Lagos. 

“This project leverages our Internet capacity, investment in terrestrial fiber-optic infrastructure and points of presence for service delivery across Lagos State. We’re committed to improving the quality of access and accelerating the digital transformation of small businesses,” Opeke said.

Equally speaking, Ibrahima Ba, Facebook Connectivity Programs, said, "We are committed to working with partners across Africa and elsewhere to support connectivity initiatives and develop better internet infrastructure in communities that lack reliable and affordable access."

Nonye Dom/GEE

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Opeke, MainOne CEO tops EMEA influencer at DataCloud Europe

ITRealms:

The chief executive officer of the acclaimed West Africa’s premier connectivity and data center solutions company, MainOne, Ms. Funke Opeke has been nominated as one of 50 top influencers transforming the data center and cloud landscape in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) reports ITRealms.

The DataCloud Europe conference, ITRealms gathered attracted over 1800 data center and cloud executives from over 60 countries as well as over 90 exhibiting companies, is the foremost networking event for data center players in EMEA.

During the conference, Gbenga Adegbiji, General Manager of MainOne’s MDXi Data Centers, joined an expert panel on the Africa Data Centre Leadership to discuss strategies for achieving improved Data Center and Cloud penetration across the continent. 

Adegbiji asserted that despite the limitations, the opportunities for data center growth are enormous given the upsurge in the use of ICT services and mobile broadband, the migration towards a digital economy with Internet underpinning a lot of services across the region, better adoption of e-Governance, e-Health and e-Commerce initiatives and businesses looking to host their growing digital information locally.

According to him, MainOne is anticipating the growing demand and has started building its second Tier III+ data center in Sagamu, a blooming industrial cluster in South-West Nigeria.

Chuks Egbune/GEE 

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Recession, motivator for MainOne’s cloud deal with Microsoft

ITRealms:

The Chief Executive Officer of MainOne, Funke Opeke has said that the current recession in the country was a motivator for her company to leverage Microsoft cloud, which led to the debut of its HoloLens, reports ITRealms.

Opeke in her address to the occasion with the theme: “Disruptive Technology: Achieve More with Less” said the economic downturn has left businesses with no alternative than to adopt and leverage disruptive technology to drive efficiency, save cost and deliver economic value.

She noted the need to align business needs with technology, the need to be agile and the importance of security, citing the successes recorded in the e-payment, e-commerce sectors with businesses such as eTransact, Konga, Jumia and Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBBS) as of the adoption of disruptive technology in Nigeria.

Ms. Opeke reiterated that the annual Nerds Unite conference is a commitment of MainOne and its partners to sharing knowledge and ideas aimed at transforming the businesses of its customers.

“At MainOne, we believe that our customers are the most able in this society to bring about disruption in the Nigerian economy leveraging technology. Nerds Unite provides a vantage platform for us to enable our stakeholder community with new ideas to disrupt the Nigerian business landscape”.

In its third year, Nerds Unite 2017 featured world-class leaders from global, blue chip IT firms sharing knowledge on new trends and other disruptive technologies facing today’s technology landscape.

The event also had in attendance, MainOne partners including Radware, Cisco, SAP, Huawei and Samsung, with representation from the Internet Society.

Chuks Egbune/GEE 

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Pix: From left: Senior Development Manager, Internet Society, Michuki Mwangi;  CEO, Venture Garden Group, Bunmi  Akinyemiju; CEO, MainOne, Funke Opeke, and Principal Group Manager, Microsoft Corporation, Robert Di Benedetto during the Nerds Unite 2017, organized by MainOne at Landmark Center, Oniru, Lagos.

MainOne boost schools with CSR

ITRealms:

The acclaimed West Africa’s leading connectivity and data center solutions provider, MainOne, has given a boost to schools with its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, reports ITRealms.

The initiative tagged Changing Lives… Impacting the Future (CLIF), ITRealms gathered, saw MainOne adopting Mayeigun Community Primary School and Gbara Junior Secondary School located in Jakande-Lekki, Lagos by lifting the school environment.

ITRealms reports that the company supplied educational materials and toys and beautified the environment by planting flowers around the premises and landscaping the schools.

According to Coordinator, Health, Safety and Environment at MainOne, Oluyomi Johnson, the CLIF initiative is part of the company’s efforts to positively impact education in Nigeria.

“The major thrust of our community engagement has been in the education sector. Since 2011, we have assisted various schools in Lekki, Ajah and environs, identifying their needs and exploring how we can provide for them. We plan to continue our support for schools across Lagos, renovating their facilities, providing them internet and educational materials and more importantly, volunteering the service of our employees” Johnson said.

Acknowledging the uplifting of the school, the Head Teachers of Mayeigun Community Primary School and Gbara Junior Secondary School, Mrs. Oyeyipo and Mrs. Fashola respectively, expressed their delight at the re-painted facilities and urged other companies to take CSR to schools more seriously.

ITRealms recalls that since 2011, MainOne has been supporting educational institutions in Nigeria with yearly donations of study materials including school bags, text and exercise books, and renovation of critical infrastructure facilities. The Company’s contribution to the development of these schools forms a part of its Corporate Social Responsibility focus in Education and Information and Communications Technology.

Uj. N. Dominic/GEE

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MainOne’s data center achieves West Africa 1st SAP certification

ITRealms:

The data center subsidiary of MainOne, the MDXi, has achieved SAP-certified provider of Infrastructure Services for SAP solutions, reports ITRealms.

This new certification, according to the Temitope Osunrinde of the Public Relations and Digital Communications at MainOne, confers on MDXi the ability to deliver high-quality cloud and infrastructure operations services for customers running SAP solutions and recognizes the company as the region’s first SAP Certified Data Center.

The Chief Executive Officer of MainOne, Funke Opeke, while receiving the certificate was quoted in a press statement made available to ITRealms , said it would afford MDXi to host and manage SAP applications utilizing the company’s enterprise cloud platforms, across its private, public and hybrid cloud solutions, via a consumption-based delivery model.

As a SAP-certified provider of hosting services, she said, MDXi would offer a cost-effective yet reliable delivery model for mission-critical applications for customers of SAP, stressing that SAP customers who rely on MainOne’s data center for hosting services will be empowered to focus on the business value of their solutions and benefit from reduced operational expenses that a commercial data center provides.

"We are pleased to receive the SAP certification for Infrastructure Operations Services, as it validates our commitment to providing world-class data center and cloud solutions in Nigeria. With this certification from SAP, it is now possible for Nigerian enterprises and businesses to host SAP applications in-country on MDXi’s Cloud platform and optimize their accounting processes, data analytics and sales chain management. This will improve response times for SAP applications, ensure data security and assure more cost effective subscription charges.”

Equally speaking the Managing Director of SAP West Africa, Kudzai Danha noted ht more than ever, SAP Africa is excited about the SAP HANA certification of partners like MainOne. The current market demand for attractive business applications in the cloud presents great business opportunities and through SAP HANA®, customers can innovate and redesign business processes, capitalizing on the agility of this unique platform.”

SAP HANA Cloud is an in-memory platform that runs analytics applications smarter, business processes faster and data infrastructures simpler! It is the foundation for all the data needs of a business, removing the burden of maintaining separated legacy systems and siloed data, so business can run simple in this new digital economy.

The SAP certification process is rigorous and culminates with an onsite audit session to determine that the provider meets all the local and global requirements as stipulated by SAP to run its applications. Some of the criteria include quality and knowledge management, data center, network and connectivity, back up and data recovery, IT service management and project management. In order to meet this certification requirements, MDXi demonstrated its professional competence in all aspects of infrastructure operations including possessing a comprehensive operations manual, system landscape diagrams, security guidelines, OS access, required technical skills amongst others.

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MainOne aligns with global effort on women in ICT

Gender ICT@ITRealms:

Leading connectivity and data center solutions provider, MainOne, has aligned with the global campaign on girls and young women to deliberately choose careers in the growing information and communications technology (ICT) sector, reports ITRealms.

Marketing Manager, MainOne, Ms Jumoke Akande, made this call at the International Girls in ICT Day hosted by E-Business Life Communications Limited in Lagos, saying that there is currently a gender disparity in ICT jobs, and urged girls as well as women to pursue ICT-related careers in the burgeoning sector.

“We believe that improving the number of girls in ICT careers creates a more balanced and inclusive society. Therefore, it is important that we encourage girls to expand their horizons, to empower and enable them overcome whatever limiting mindsets and fears they might have regarding pursuing careers in ICT,” she said.

Emphasizing that MainOne’s support of initiatives aimed at encouraging technology careers for Nigerian girls aligns with the goal of the company to provide girls of all ages with support, mentorship and the motivation to pursue ICT-driven careers, eventually becoming active role models themselves to the next generation of girls.

“Our CEO, Ms. Opeke, is an ITU female role model and believes this cycle is necessary to create better opportunities for our girls and reverse the gender imbalance in technology,” Akande said.

The Chief Executive Officer, eBusiness Life Communications, Ufuoma Emuophedaro commended MainOne for its efforts in expediting digital literacy and called on other stakeholders to join hands to further invest in girls and young women by supporting the Girls in ICT campaign in addition to empowering them by offering them the confidence to pursue ICT studies and careers.

ITRealms recalls that the Girls in ICT Day, celebrated every year on the fourth Thursday in April, is an awareness-raising initiative designed to promote studies and careers in technology to a new generation of girls and young women with an interest in becoming ICT enthusiasts.

The theme for this year’s celebration was "Expanding Horizons and Changing Attitudes" and it was sponsored by MainOne along with other organizations and individuals. The event was attended by the representative of the Minister of Communications, representatives from IT companies and other industry stakeholders.

Nkemdilim Nweke/GEE

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MainOne boss wins Business Woman of the Year 2012

Ms Funke Opeke, MD, MainOne

Information reaching us indicates that the chief executive officer, MainOne Cable Company, Ms. Funke Opeke, won the Business Woman of the Year 2012 at the AllAfrica Business Leaders Awards [AABLA] – West Africa regional finals held in Lagos, Nigeria recently.

MainOne also had its footprints by "First private submarine cable landing licenses in Nigeria and Ghana; First wholly African owned, privately funded, open access submarine cable in Africa; Highest potential capacity system to date on the West Coast of Africa  with upgrade opportunity to reach  4.96 Tbps."

Other achievements by MainOne include, "First private cable to deliver services in West Africa – July 1, 2010; Project Finance International: Awarded Main One the African Communications Deal of the Year 2009; Submarine Cable system delivered on schedule and within budget to meet the needs of an underserved market. A first for Telecommunications in Africa, to name a few.

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MainOne Cable upgrades infrastructure to meet growing demands

Main One Cable Company has upgraded its network infrastructure to meet the growing bandwidth demands.

The upgrade is for the lit capacity on its undersea fibre optic cable system with an additional 20 Gigabit Per Second (Gbps) between Lagos, Nigeria and Seixal Portugal, with deployment of an additional bank of 10 Gbps wavelengths ready for implementation on demand.

A press statement endorsed by Ms Jumoke Akande of Main One Cable Company and Courtney McDaniel of TE SubCom and made available to ITRealms Online, indicated that the upgrade was necessary to meet the growing demand for bandwidth on the Main One network.

This upgrade, they said, is the third capacity advancement of the network since Main One’s launch in June 2010.

According to them, with this upgrade, Main One is positioned as the undersea cable system carrier with the highest lit capacity in West Africa, with over 12 times the capacity of the incumbent operator and higher than other existing and planned operators.

The chief executive officer, MainOne, Ms Funke Opeke,  was quoted as saying they are growing the lit capacity on the network to accommodate the ever growing demand for the region’s Internet and international plus cross border transport capacity services.

“This reinforces our position as the leading provider of wholesale Internet and transmission services to meet the expectations of our customers,” she said.

The capacity upgrade, she noted was seamlessly executed by Main One’s Network Planning and Implementation team in conjunction with TE SubCom, Main One’s submarine cable system supplier and Business Unusual Limited, Infrastructure Project Managers.

The Vice President, Sales for TE SubCom, Mr. Michael Rieger, said they were  honored to have originally constructed Main One's world class network and to be a part of its continuing expansion.

“Main One's substantial increase in demand demonstrates their continued customer growth and we are pleased they have chosen us as supplier of this important upgrade,” he said.

ITRealms Online recollects that Main One is wholly African and is the first privately owned submarine network cable in West Africa with initial landing stations in Nigeria, Ghana and Portugal and seeks to deliver its cable system on time and within budget.

Remmy Nweke
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