Glo-1 unveils services in Ghana, rides on Alcatel-Lucent

The Glo-1 submarine cable services have been unveiled in the city of Accra, the capital of Ghana, riding on the Alcatel-Lucent ingenuity.

Confirming this to ITRealms Online, the Regional Communications Manager, Alcatel-Lucent, Sherine Aziez noted that the Glo1 infrastructure is a 9,800 kilometers long high-capacity international submarine fibre optic cable which runs from Bude in the United Kingdom with several landing stations between Europe and West Africa.

Aziez listed some of these landing stations to comprise of Bude - UK, Vigo-Spain, Lisbon-Portugal, Casablanca-Morocco, Nouakchott-Mauritania, Dakar-Senegal, Pariah-Cape Verde, Banjul-Gambia, Conakry-Guinea, Freetown-Sierra Leone, Monrovia-Liberia, Abidjan-la Cote d’ Ivoire, Accra-Ghana, Lome-Togo, Cotonou-Benin and Lagos in Nigeria.

Recalling that this deal, as well as other contract for its optical cum Internet Protocol (IP) backbone and wireless networks - all valued at over $1billion about N154,000,000,640.00, was awarded to telecommunication vendor and world leaders in submarine cable networks, Alcatel-Lucent.

The regional manager also said that the Glo 1 facility was built with leading technologies backed by the rich expertise of Globacom and Alcatel-Lucent, thus set to radically transform the country’s communications landscape and afford Ghanaian businesses new opportunities of bridging the digital gap between Ghana and the rest of the world.

Alcatel-Lucent, Aziez noted, has also partnered Globacom to provide submarine cable connectivity from the United Kingdom to New York which connects Ghana to North America to provide crystal clear voice calls and high speed data/Internet transmission services to the two major data hubs of the world.

Chairman of Globacom Limited, Dr. Mike Adenuga jnr was quoted as saying that these are exciting times indeed for Ghana and the rest of Africa, as Glo 1 comes in to offer immense opportunities for businesses across the continent and enable them to compete on an equal footing with their counterparts elsewhere in the world.

“Today, Glo 1 is here in Ghana to deliver transmission capacity which will radically change the country’s economic landscape and indeed, that of our sub-region. ’Glo 1 will usher in a new era of prosperity for Ghanaians as its benefits will impact rapidly on the transformation of education, manufacturing, agriculture, health, entertainment and commerce, fuelling the national economy as a whole towards higher productivity and wealth,” he said.

Adenuga also pointed out that Glo 1’s state-of-the-art infrastructure has been designed to provide unprecedented high speed internet traffic with cost-effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe and the rest of the world.

“It will carry traffic for Globacom and any other operators intending to lease the service. It will ultimately make telecoms services in Ghana and the entire West African sub-region much faster, more reliable and cheaper for consumers” Adenuga said.

For the President, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks SAS, Mr. Philippe Dumont said that Glo-1 submarine cable network enhances the overall telecommunications infrastructure of Globacom who have contributed to pioneering availability of high-speed Internet access and advanced communications services in Africa.

“This launch further enhances the successful cooperation we have established with Globacom since its inception” he said.

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Cisco launches Nexus series of innovations

Cisco has introduced technology innovations across its entire data centre business advantage portfolio, including Cisco Nexus 7000 family, Nexus 5000 family, Nexus 3000, a new ultra-low latency platform, MDS storage switches, Unified Computing System, Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) and NX-OS, its comprehensive data centre operating system which spans the Cisco data centre portfolio, reports CHARLES OKOH.

According to a press statement to ITRealms Online, with these innovations, Cisco continues to tightly integrate Unified Fabric, Unified Computing, and Unified Network Services into a holistic data center fabric designed to be simple, scalable and secure, delivering any application across any location, within the data center, across data centers, or to the cloud.

The Cisco data center fabric enables converged network management and ‘wire-once’ agility from the server to the storage array for both physical and virtualized environments.

With these additions, Cisco further enhances the industry’s most comprehensive and innovative standards-based data center portfolio, allowing multiple data centers and cloud services to be connected across a common intelligent fabric, delivering architectural flexibility, investment protection and operational simplicity.

“Cisco’s latest advances with data center fabric convergence creates an end-to-end view of the virtualized data center network down to the virtual machine, helping to provide lower total cost of ownership, reduced complexity, better workload management and security in the cloud,” part of the statement said.

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ATCON wants FG to probe sale of NECOM house

The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has called on the federal government to probe the purported sale of NECOM House for the sum of N4 billion to African Aluminum Ltd.

The African Aluminum Limited is purportedly owned by the father of the speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole.

While reacting to some media report at the weekend, ATCON called for a review of the sale of NECOM House for the sum of N4bn.

ATCON president, Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu said that a recent report gave an indication that NECOM House, Nigeria’s tallest building and the major real estate asset of the ailing Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd, NITEL, may have been put out on sale for N4billion without due process.

According to him, ATCON has reason to think that the media reports may not entirely be rumour and wondered why the building could be sold for a paltry N4 billion.

“We have reason to think the story cannot be true as we do not expect, ordinarily, that the building, 32 levels above ground which is located at the Marina, the most prime location in Nigeria, can be sold for a pittance that N4billion is,” he said in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online and co-signed by the General Secretary, ATCON, Mr. David Roberts.

Therefore, ATCON pointed out that it has a stake in the investment of NITEL as it’s a national asset.

“Our association has a stake in the sense that it represents an aggregate of investments in telecommunications in the country,” he said.

Emphasising that NECOM House as it stands today houses major components of some of the submarine cables whose destabilization, in whatever form, may affect our members’ investments and also the cost of telecommunications services to Nigerians in the foreseeable future.

ATCON therefore wants the Federal Government to assemble a team of experts to probe the purported sale in the public interest.

“Our association calls on the Federal Government to kindly assemble a team of independent valuation specialists to take a second look at the value of the building for public interest,” ATCON insisted.

Meanwhile, just last week, ATCON endorsed W.Afri.Tel exhibition, now in its eleventh year, saying it has in the past one decade become the main platform for the celebration of Nigeria’s success in telecommunications.

Both W.Afri.Tel and WAFICT, he said have become veritable platforms for the cross-fertilisation of ideas that continue to contribute to the development of many fruitful policies the country is witnessing today.

Omo-Ettu, who rated the two events as the best in the sub-region, said he encourages every serious ICT company in the West Africa to avail itself of the opportunity being offered by WAFICT and W.Afri.Tel to reach a wide market that cuts across the entire ICT ecosystem.

According to Mr. Abang, the platform would equally serve as an avenue for celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Nigerian telecom revolution.

WAFICT Congress 2011, he said, will run alongside the 11th edition of the W.Afri.Tel, organised by EMS of South Africa, from June 14-16.

WAFICT is being organised by IT & Telecom Digest, in conjunction with the UK-based Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), and has the theme: The Emerging New Frontier: – Opportunities and Potentials for Sustainable Growth in West Africa.

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eWorld to celebrate 10-yrs of GSM

Plans have been advanced for the hosting of stakeholders to the celebration of 10 years of Global System for Mobile communications by eWorld Magazine in Lagos.

Chief Executive Officer, eWorld, Mr. Aaron Ukodie said that the event scheduled to mark the achievements of the GSM operators and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in the past 10 years, has been scheduled for August 4, this year.

He said that highlights of the event will include a one-day Forum to parley on the theme: From Voice To Data, The Emerging Market Place.

“There will also be a publication to mark the milestone event. The publication will feature interviews and focus on the events that have shaped the past 10 years of GSM in Nigeria,” he said.

In addition, Ukodie said the publication will forecast the events that will shape the next 10 years of GSM development and contribution to the Nigerian economy.

Ukodie further said the platform will witness and document every step of developments in the sector from the beginning and having followed all the players and the developments closely and with keen interest.

He recalled that in early August, 2001, two companies, MTN and Econet (now Airtel) began GSM mobile services, after they received Digital Mobile Licenses (DMI) from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on February 9, 2001.

According to him, the award of licenses followed a successful handling of the DML auction process on January 19, the same year.

Ukodie said the following year NITEL’s mobile operating company MTel launched its own services. Communications Investment Limited (CIL) which had along with MTN and Econet been awarded a license could not join the two to begin services that same year. Its license was withdrawn following its inability to meet payment deadline.

However Owners of CIL which approached the NCC with another name Globacom was lucky to get a Second National Operator (SNO) license in 2003, when the offer was opened in 2002.

This allowed Globacom to launch GSM services on August 2003.

Since then the Nigerian landscape has witnessed a lot of communication innovations with subscriber lines now above 85 million. Though there are many who believe that Nigeria’s phone lines could reach over 100 million lines, some others are of the view that the market is moving from voice to data.

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Ndukwe, Ige, Tallen win awards

The immediate past Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe and Chairman, Nigeria Internet Group (NIG) Board of Trustees and former Minister of Communications, Chief Olawale Ige, recently led the group of awardees at the 2011 Titans of Tech.

Also honoured at the event held in Lagos include the former Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority, Chief Vincent Maduka, Deputy governor of Plateau State, Chief Mrs Pauline kedem Tallen, as well as the pioneer EVC of NCC, and Chairman, NSL Consulting Limited, His Royal Highness, Igwe Ogbona Cletus Iromantu.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony, Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, who chaired the occasion, Chief Adeyemi Ikuforiji, noted that the recognition was timely, as people should be honoured while they are alive and can enjoy the appreciation and adulation.

Don Pedro Aganbi, the secretary of the awards committee noted that the awardees have throughout their careers demonstrated a definitive history of innovation, consistency and passion for the development of ICT in Nigeria.

“In a lifetime service to Nigeria, you all made a difference. Your contribution in putting Nigeria in the global ICT map has etched your footprint on the marble of time and this must not escape full historical documentation” he said.

In the citation, Chief Olawale Ige, a Fellow of Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) was described as a Telecom Bridge Builder.

Ige who attended the Polytechnic, Regent Street, London, was NITEL’s General Manager Long Distance Communications before assuming the post of Special Adviser to the Honourable Minister of Communications, a post he held until his appointment as the Director General in the same Ministry.

He was appointed the Honourable Minister of Communication in 1990, a portfolio that was later enlarged to include Transport and Aviation.

In over 35 years of working for government with over a decade in the top echelons, he is highly acclaimed as a bridge builder and manager extra-ordiniare.

He has extensive diplomatic knowledge and experience having occupied the role himself on numerous international representation visits. He regularly represents his home country Nigeria and Africa in summits all over the world.

Concerning Chief Mrs Pauline kedem Tallen, who was sworn into office on 29th May, 2007, as only the second female Deputy Governor in the entire Northern part of Nigeria, it was noted that her leadership traits were visibly prominent while in secondary school and after her studies there, she gained admission at the University of Jos where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology in 1982.

But it was in 1999 following her appointment as the Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology that her outstanding contribution to technology in Nigeria came to the fore. Among other things, Mrs Pauline Tallen is the first female to ever hold the post of a Minister of Science and Technology in the history of Nigeria.

While in this office Mrs Tallen helped to formulate strategic plans to enable the ministry of science and technology accomplish its objectives and used her strong and wide political influence and contacts within the Legislative and Executive arms of Government to garner resources for the ministry.

Encouraging women, especially the girl-child to embrace technology, is another important role she played as a Minister. Her message has been that unless women embrace technology, they will not be able to advance economically and thus stand to become irrelevant in the 21st century

Engr. Ndukwe was referred to as a professional Telecommunications Engineer with over 30 years of international experience in the telecommunications industry, majority of which have been in senior management positions in private and multi-national telecommunications companies.

He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, an Alumnus of the Lagos Business School, a Fellow of Nigerian Institute of Management and a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering. Ndukwe served as the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of the Nigerian Communications Commission between February 2000 and April 2010.

His time at the Commission witnessed tremendous growth and transformation, which have resulted in the boom now associated with the telecommunications industry in Nigeria. The number of connected lined grew from 450, 000 in 2001 to over 70million in 2010 under his watch.

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