In the wake of April 1, Glo-1, the underwater submarine cable which has been touted as the solution to the bandwidth requirements of Nigeria and West Africa has been launched.

The 9,500km state-of-the-art cable is expected to increase bandwidth requirements for Nigeria and West Africa and connect Africa to the rest of Europe.

When Globacom announced last November that they would be launching the undersea submarine cable by March 2009, I was hoping it won’t be one of those projects that will be abandoned or take longer.

This news comes as Seacom, the company that has attempted to connect Africa to the world wide web like most other continents, with the physical undersea fibre infrastructure that does so, has arrived in Africa.

The Glo-1 cable will provide connectivity from Lagos to Bude in UK through fibre optic cable laid undersea. The cable, which is of the 32 STM 64 type, has virtual infinite capacity and therefore offers sufficient capacity traffic for the company’s mobile, fixed, and Internet telecommunications services.

Globacom’s COO, Mr. Mohamed Jameel said that the company embarked on Glo-1 submarine cable in order to keep with its aspirations to avail Africa the possibilities offered by broadband Internet. He further stated:

The undersea cable is designed with the latest technology and it is the first of such state-of-the-art submarine cable which will connect Nigeria directly to United Kingdom and further to the United States, the two major data hubs of the world. It further enhances Nigeria’s capacity to provide telephone hubbing services for the rest of the world.

What This Means?

Lots. Lots. Lots.

This will mean a lot of things to the Nigerian economy. High-speed Internet connectivity in Nigeria has come at a time when we need it most as we look forward to becoming one of the 20 best economies in the world by 2020.

This will also help cushion the effect of the global economic recession, as more opportunities on the internet will be explored, especially as it relates to electronic payment solutions and online advertising in Nigeria.

We hope that Nigerian scammers set up legal online businesses with this great achievement. Or will that increase their scam activities?

Click to here read Globacom’s official press release on the submarine cable launch.

Image Via: West African