Accra — Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), the lead investor in the Main One Cable Company today marked the final splice of the Main One submarine fibre optic cable system.

This landmark project consists of a 7000-kilometre cable between Portugal, Ghana and Nigeria with branching units in Canary Islands, Morocco, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire. It is expected to enhance West Africa’s connectivity to Europe and other parts of the world. The second phase of the project will extend connectivity to South Africa.

The Main One Cable system will deliver 1.92Tbps of high capacity bandwidth - equivalent to ten times the available capacity of the existing fibre optic cable serving West Africa, and more than 20 times the satellite capacity currently available across Sub-Saharan Africa.

“As a pan-African financing institution, AFC is proud to be a partner in the Main One submarine cable project, an African-conceived and driven project, which will open and integrate the continent’s ICT markets and address the commercial imperative necessary to drive economic growth,” said AFC President and Chief Executive Andrew Alli.

Funke Opeke, CEO of Main One Cable Company Limited said “AFC brings a combination of technical, institutional, regional and financial skills to the project, which will provide much needed telecommunications capacity in West Africa. We welcome their participation, which has made it possible to complete the necessary financing for the project’s implementation.”