MainOne, West Africa’s leading open access submarine cable company yesterday recorded another telecommunication milestone in the subregion as it performed the ground breaking ceremony for its $25 million (approximately N4 billion) Tier-III Data Centre in Lagos.
The plan for the MainOne Data Centre, the largest of its kind in West Africa at 1,500 square metres with a 600 rack capacity was unveiled at the ground breaking ceremony at its’ Cable Landing Station (CLS) in the Lekki Peninsula, Lagos.
Speaking on the project, Ms. Funke Opeke, CEO, MainOne said: “We are delighted with this project because of the immense benefits it will provide our customers. Internet penetration has been a huge issue in Nigeria especially to the hinterlands. The new Data Centre will leverage on MainOne’s network which is peered with leading operators and internet exchanges worldwide to provide global reach to our customers across all locations.”
The MainOne chief executive, who expressed delight at the performance of the company’s submarine cable since inception in 2010, told Nigeria CommunicaitonsWeek, “we have not experience any major outages since operation began three years ago.” She attributed this to the team of dedicated professional staff engaged by the firm.
“In an investment of this magnitude, you cannot afford to cut corners. We deploy the state of the art monitoring technology device, using GPS surveillance equipment round the clock on our undersea cable. We cannot afford to fail our clients,” Opeke stated.
The MainOne CEO stated that the Data Centre, which is expected to be completed in Q2, 2014 when fully operational will have redundancy such that there is no single point of failure within the facility.
She added that the MainOne Lekki Data Centre will pave way for the establishment of additional Data Centres and Point of Presence (POPs) across Nigeria and other West African nations.
Also commenting on the multi billionaire project, Folu Aderibigbe, chief sales and marketing officer, said it is further proof of MainOne’s commitment to enhance infrastructure within its primary markets.
According to Aderibigbe, “the new MainOne Data Centre is expected to transform West Africa into a digital economy. The project will also aid reduction of information technology costs and risks while enhancing business efficiency and profitability.”
Aderibigbe pointed out that one of the unique features of MainOne is its direct access to MainOne Metro and International fibre and all the major interconnection with telecom networks in Nigeria and Ghana.
MainOne recently signed a $100 million refinancing facility syndication from a number of local and international banks to help fund its infrastructure expansion including fibre around the country, metro Lagos, and nationwide POPs.
It promises to complete construction of 200 km of a metro-presence across the Lagos metropolis before end of 2013.
The event was witnessed by dignitaries including representatives from LASG, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Captains of Industry, the media and company stakeholders.