Main One Celebrates First Year of Operations …..Seeks National Broadband Policy

By ROMMY IMAH

Main One Cable Company, West Africa’s first wholesale and leading broadband provider, has called for the formulation of a national policy on broadband to accelerate rapid penetration of broadband, lower cost of telecommunications and to speed up economic and social development. The call comes on the heels of the company’s celebration of its first year of commencing operations in Nigeria and delivering unmatched broadband service to Nigerians and West Africa.

Chief Executive Officer of Main One Cable Company, Ms. Funke Opeke, observed that a national broadband policy will establish the strategic framework for the industry operators and stakeholders.

“We think that with increasing demand for broadband accessibility by Nigerians, the time has come for the government and key players in the sector to articulate and develop a policy framework which regulates broadband service delivery and lays out a pragmatic roadmap on how we can get the capacity which is now available across the shoreline to the hinterlands”, she said.

Ms. Opeke stated further that there are some key issues impeding broadband penetration which should form the thrust of the national broadband policy. “We have identified issues such as a review of the national backbone, network availability, access and interconnection. In addition, NCC needs to look at matters of spectrum, frequency and distribution and try to review how they are allocated and utilized to improve telecommunications in the country”, she added.

Opeke while reviewing Main One’s performance in the last one year following its successful commencement of operations in July, 2010, said the company was proud to be West Africa’s first wholesale broadband company and driving the broadband revolution across the sub region.

According to her, “Main One has transformed the telecommunication landscape of Nigeria and West Africa. We have done a great job of maintaining an extremely reliable network; a network which has remained 100% available to our customers since we launched a year ago”.

She said Main One has created footprints on the telecommunications industry and will continue to do its best to satisfy the yearnings of its customers. “We brought a big cable with a lot of capacity to the market which has seen a reduction in price points. We have seen call rates drop, Internet costs reduced while access to broadband and speed has increased. This is part of the impact we have created as we continue to develop the broadband market”, she added. 

Ms. Opeke also said Main One places a high premium on service quality adding that the company signed partnership agreements with Cisco, Seacom, Global Crossing among others in its quest to ensure that the customers enjoy access to quality telecommunication at cheaper rates.

She said Main One is focused on finding ways to service the majority of the population still yearning for more broadband, higher speed and low prices and added that the company is pursuing this with emphasis on another landing point in the South South region of Nigeria as well as extending its cables to other countries down the West African coast.

It would be recalled that Main One Cable commenced broadband operations in Nigeria and Ghana in July 2010 following the successful completion of its multimillion dollar undersea fibre cables from Portugal down to the West coast of Africa.