Underwater cable firm, Main One Cable Company, has outlined its plans to seamlessly integrate businesses with offices in both Nigeria and Ghana as well as promote trade relations and boost economic growth of the sub-region
Funke Opeke, chief executive officer of Main One, said that the driving force behind the initiative was the fact that Nigeria and Ghana share similar business models and are leading economies in West Africa.
“West Africa’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 6.2 per cent in 2011,” she was reported as saying by Business Day Online. “The growth is largely driven by Ghana and Nigeria that share similar language, culture and practice.”
“They have similar business opportunities with great potentials for regional integration of businesses. So, we are creating awareness with our solution on how to harness these potentials for optimal growth.”
Joseph Odoi, country manager of Main One Cable Ghana added that the firm had extended its operations to Togo via an interconnection through Ghana and said that it is currently servicing the Republic of Benin from Nigeria.
Plans are also underway to extend services to landlocked areas such as Burkina Faso and Senegal.
Odoi said that the firm was currently engaging ONATEL, the national exchange carrier of Burkina Faso and SONATEL, principal telecoms provider of Senegal. He also revealed that Main One had connected Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in Ghana and Nigeria to encourage local peering.
Local peering involves allowing service providers to interconnect with the telecom network and enabling the exchange of internet traffic between the countries.
“This is very critical to reduction of communications cost,” said Odoi. “This is because there is no need for carrying local traffic to a distant handover point and back again. There is no charge for local traffic exchange.”
Oando and EcoBank are already taking advantage of Main One’s cross-border network to improve business efficiency and productivity across the West African sub-region.
