The Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), lead investor in the Main One Cable Company, joins Main One to mark the global operational launch, today, of the groundbreaking Main One submarine fibre optic cable system project.

This landmark project, which is now operational, seriously enhances West Africa's connectivity to Europe and other parts of the world. Telecommunications in the region receives a tremendous boost with roughly 7,000 kilometres of fibre optic cable between Portugal, Ghana and Nigeria. Along its path, the cable has branching units to Morocco, the Canary Islands, Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire. A second phase of the project will extend it to South Africa.

The Main One Cable satisfies what has until now been a huge dearth in fast and efficient connectivity, delivering 1.92 tera bytes per second (Tbps) of high capacity bandwidth. This is equivalent to ten times the available capacity of the fibre optic cable that has served West Africa until now. It has about twenty times the satellite capacity currently available across Sub-Saharan Africa.

"As a pan-African financing institution, AFC is delighted to be a proud partner in the Main One submarine cable system project," says Andrew Alli, AFC President and Chief Executive Officer. "This is an African conceived, financed and driven project, which opens and integrates Africa's ICT markets and addresses the commercial imperative necessary to drive economic growth."

"Funke Opeke, CEO of Main One Cable Company Limited, notes "AFC brought a combination of technical, institutional, regional and financial skills into the project, which will provide much needed telecommunications capacity in West Africa. The participation of AFC enhanced the ability of the project to complete the necessary financing for its implementation and timely delivery."