08 November 2018

MainOne’s current system comprises a 7,000km submarine cable. It will work with Orange to build two new branches and stations to connect to Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

MainOne Company will partner with Orange to extend its submarine cable system in West Africa.

MainOne’s current system comprises a 7,000km submarine cable and was launched in 2010. Under its partnership with Orange, the company will build two new branches and stations to connect its system to Dakar and Abidjan.

Orange will be the owner of the cable station in Dakar. 

Orange Group subsidiary Orange Marine will manage the installation of the new branches.

They will be lit using Ciena’s transmission hardware and equipped with TE SubCom’s WSS ROADM technology.

It’s claimed this allows MainOne and its partners to match the capacity in each branch to the market need, thus optimising cable utilisation.

This is also said to be an industry first for the deployment of undersea spectrum-sharing in Africa.

TE SubCom adds that the deployment will inject new technology that upgrades MainOne’s system to a potential capacity of 10Tbps when it becomes operational around November 2019.

Following the launch, MainOne will have landing points in five markets – Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Portugal, in addition to Cameroon.

The company says a cluster of Francophone countries in West Africa that are experiencing an increased demand for advanced telecom services, including Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania, will also benefit from the extensions.

Kazeem Oladepo, MainOne’s regional executive for West Africa, says: “This extension of our subsea cable to Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire will further open up their international bandwidth markets, drive down costs and ultimately boost the economic and commercial development of the region.”

Meanwhile, Orange says it will benefit from greater capacity and additional bandwidth for the development of fixed and mobile data in Africa.

“More specifically, this cable extension is an opportunity to improve connectivity and offer a broader range of services for both Orange Côte d’Ivoire and Sonatel,” states the company.

“In addition, MainOne offers an alternative route that guarantees the protection of voice and data traffic passing through the other cables in the area – SAT3/WASC/SAFE and ACE.