The Main One Cable is a submarine communications cable stretching from Portugal to South Africa with landings along the route in various west African countries. On April 28, 2008, it was announced that Main Street Technologies has awarded a turnkey supply contract for the Main One Cable System to Tyco Telecommunications. The cable system spans 14,000 km and provides additional capacity for international and Internet connectivity to countries between Portugal and South Africa on the west coast of Africa. The submarine cable project was designed in two phases, both of which were scheduled for completion in May 2010. The dual fiber pair, 1.28- Tbit/s, DWDM project connects Nigeria, Ghana, and Portugal in Phase 1 with onward connectivity through Portugal to Europe,

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and the

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. The Phase 1 cable system spans 6,900 kilometres. Additional connectivity extending to

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and South Africa occurred in the second phase of the project. Main One provides international capacity into a region that has experienced explosive growth in tele-density in recent years, but which remains constrained with respect to access to international cable capacity for global connectivity. The system is being developed by Main Street Technologies headquartered in Lagos. An October 10, 2008 press release states that the desk top study and engineering for the system has been completed. On July 22, 2010 the cable was launched. MainOne also owns a data centre subsidiary
MDXi
which builds and operates Tier III data centres across West Africa. Project management and engineering for the cable system has been contracted to specialist undersea consulting firm, Pioneer Consulting.

Path

The Main One Cable is an undersea cable system stretching from Portugal to South Africa with landings along the route in various west African countries.

Landing points

The Main One cable system has the following landing points in operation in July 2010: * Seixal, Portugal *

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, Ghana * Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria planned landing points for phase 2 are: *

Casablanca Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...

, Morocco * Tenerife, Canary Islands * Dakar, Senegal *

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Côte d'Ivoire Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

* Bonny, Nigeria * Libreville, Gabon * Boma, Democratic Republic of the Congo *

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* Cape Town, South Africa * Swakopmund, Namibia

Impact

Main One provides international capacity into a region that has experienced explosive growth in tele-density in recent years, but which remains constrained with respect to access to international cable capacity for global connectivity. The Main One Cable system provides open access to regional telecom operators and Internet service providers at rates that are less than 20% of current international bandwidth prices in the region available via SAT3 or satellite service providers, according to the project's organizers. Main Street says it will encourage local content development via skills transfer of critical networking technologies and job creation with the location of the network operational center (NOC) for the entire system in Nigeria.

Ownership

The cable is privately owned by Main Street Technologies, international investors like the

Africa Finance Corporation Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) is a pan-African Multilateral Development Financial Institution established in 2007 by sovereign African states to provide pragmatic solutions to Africa's infrastructure deficit and challenging operating enviro ...

and the Pan-African Infrastructure Development Fund (PAIDF) and a couple of Nigerian banks.

Acquisition

Equinix announced they will be acquiring Mainone for an enterprise value of $320m, the deal is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022.

Construction time-line

On April 28, 2008, it was announced that Main Street Technologies had awarded a turnkey supply contract for the Main One Cable System to Tyco Telecommunications. An October 10, 2008 press release states that the desk top study and engineering for the system had been completed. On July 1, 2010 press release states that Main One had been completed and commissioned. The cable went live on July 22, 2010.

Footnotes

Sources

"Main One Web Site""Press Release, Tyco awarded Main One cable contract, April 28, 2008""Press Release, Main One Cable System progressing on schedule, October 10, 2008""Main One - Work begins on N5.4b sub-marine optical fibre cable Saturday, February 09, 2008""Nigerian Muse, Competition rocks bandwidth costs via gateways, submarine cable""Pioneer Consulting awarded MainOne contract", Ghana Business News"
{{Submarine communications cables in the Atlantic Ocean West Africa Submarine communications cables in the North Atlantic Ocean Submarine communications cables in the South Atlantic Ocean Telecommunications infrastructure Infrastructure in Europe Infrastructure in Africa Infrastructure in Portugal Infrastructure in South Africa 2010 establishments in Africa 2010 establishments in Portugal