Efem Nkanga
9 November 2009
Lagos — Nigeria's national telecommunications operator, Globacom, has taken another major step towards its vision to be the biggest and best telecoms operator in Africa by obtaining an operating licence in Cote d'Ivoire.
The approval was conveyed to Globacom by the Agence des Telecommunications de Cote d'Ivoire, the telecommunications regulatory authorities of the Francophone country.
The licence will enable Globacom take advantage of its gigantic trans-Atlantic submarine cable, Glo 1, which branched off in Cote d'Ivoire.
With this development, Ivorians have been positioned to be part of the telecommunications revolution, which Globacom is bringing to Africa.
The Glo 1 cable will deliver transmission capacity that will radically transform Africa's economic landscape by providing unprecedented high speed internet and broad band services and make telecoms services much faster, more reliable and cheaper for consumers.
Commenting on the new licence, Globacom's Group Executive Director, Mr. Paddy Adenuga, said it had given impetus to the network's desire to provide the needed opportunity for West African countries and the whole of Africa to leap forward economically through an excellent communication network and a cost-effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services.
"In line with our vision, we are building a network that will provide the most comprehensive international communication services on the continent to bridge the digital divide between Africa and the rest of the world," Adenuga stated.
He said Glo would continue to play a major role in stimulating a new era of prosperity in the continent and build facilities that will offer Africa advanced telecoms services such as teleconferencing, distance learning, disaster recovery, telemedicine, on-line diagnosis and video conferencing during surgery and research.
With the new licence, Glo will provide international carrier services for telecoms operators in Cote d'Ivoire, aggregate and carry voice and data traffic into and out of the country.
The telecoms giant will also aggregate traffic to and from third party networks in the country for all telecoms operators irrespective of the type of technology deployed such as CDMA, 3G, 4G and VOIP.
Globacom said it would improve on call completion to subscribers' handsets, reduce call failure rate and the cost of international calls.
Globacom is in Nigeria and Benin Republic as well as Ghana where it is geared to commercially launch its operations very soon. The telecoms giant is also in the process of securing more licences across the continent.
The company which started operations in Nigeria in August, 2003 and in Benin Republic in June 2008 has connected over 28 million subscribers in both countries.
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