Nigerian‘s frontline telecoms company, Globacom, and China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd are laying an undersea cable that will provide high-speed internet to oil platforms in the country’s Niger Delta region.
A news report sourced from Reuters indicated that the 850 kilometre-long (528 miles) cable, connecting South Western commercial capital, Lagos with the Delta region, would be completed by the first quarter of 2020.
The companies reportedly told the online medium in an interview on Thursday at Globacom’s Lagos headquarters that the deal on the project was signed on Tuesday.
Globacom, which in 2010 built an international undersea cable connecting Nigeria with Europe, said the new cable would serve companies with offshore oil and gas reserves which experience difficulties transmitting data.
Sanjib Roy, Globacom’s regional director on technical matters was quoted as saying the Niger Delta region communities, given the level of crude oil production activities in the area, “are the ones who will really benefit because they are the ones who have to send a huge volume of seismic data.”
Globacom said the cable would be capable of internet speeds of up to 12 terabit per second.
This is just as Li Shaowei, Deputy Managing Director of Huawei’s Nigerian unit, said it was providing a “turnkey” solution including the survey, design and installation of the cable.
