wiredinUSA July 2018

Nigeria’s telecom infrastructure

New cable in action

The SEA cable exchange-1 (SEAX-1) linking Tanah Merah in Singapore to both Batam, Indonesia, and Mersing, Malaysia, is ready for service. The cable, owned by Super Sea Cable Networks Pte Ltd (SEAX), was constructed by Huawei International and Huawei Marine Networks. The new 250km undersea cable comprises large capacity, 24-fiber pairs without repeaters. Once operational SEAX-1 will provide SEAX customers with robust, low latency, high bandwidth connectivity to meet thegrowingdemandfor e-commerce and Internet-based services throughout the ASEAN region. Construction on the project started in September 2016, with an original completion date of late 2017. Works were carried out by SEAX in collaboration with local partners PT Super Sistem Ultima, in Indonesia, and SACOFA Sdn Bhd in Malaysia.

Telecommunications operators in Nigeria have installed around 52,000km of fiber optic cable to bridge access gaps in the country, and deployed 33,000 2G, 29,000 3G and 4,000 4G LTE sites. Nigeria currently has five international submarine cable and landing station services operators, with telecommunications investment said to be over $70 billion. The new infrastructure has helped to increase the number of telephone lines from 400,000 NITEL lines in 2001 to over 150 million active mobile phone users, about 100 million Internet users, and a teledensity of 114 percent as at April 2018. However, some 33millionNigerians in 200 communities across the country are yet to have access to basic telephony services. Danbatta, represented by Edoyemi Ogo, the assistant director, technical standards, NCC, said all efforts must be channeled to improve the level of infrastructure in the sector, and in the country as a whole. The commission is committed to improve Nigeria’s broadband penetration to 30 percent by the end of the year, from the current 22 percent.

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wiredInUSA - July 2018