Globacom is laying a 9,500 kilometres telecommunications cable at a cost of about $250 million from London to 14 West African countries. The cable is expected to reach Ghana by May 2009 and then extended to Nigeria and other countries in the sub-region.
When the cable network connection is completed, it will enable more services and products to be introduced by Globacom.
Mohammed Jamil, chief operations officer of Glo, disclosed this at a press conference in Accra, following the licence issued the company by National Communications Authority.
Jamil said Glo would start operations in Ghana by the end of this year, and hopes to hit a subscriber base of two million in two years. Currently, Glo has 19 million subscribers in Nigerai and expects to hit the 30 million mark by 2012. He added that the company would get one million subscribers in Benin Republic by end of 2009.
According to him, in Ghana, Glo is putting finishing touches to its sites, and building stations and switches. This, he said, would enable many Ghanaians get linked directly to the cable for optimum satisfaction from Glo’s services.
He said Glo has applied to the NCA for 3G licence, which he is very optimistic that Glo would get soon to improve its services together with the cable connection and a planned bandwidth project. These, he noted, would help Glo to provide high speed Internet connectivity.
Jamil noted that competition is good for consumers and the operators in the country. “Competition will help to give best services. We welcome competition,” he stated.
He commended the NCA for making the licence bidding process “extremely transparent” as the authority kept to the timeline for issuing the licence as advertised. He wondered why some people doubt the transparency of the process when there is “no reason for anybody to doubt.”
Source: Business Day
