A fibre optic cable that will deliver high speed, reliable and cheaper Internet and telecommunication services in Ghana reached the Osu Beach in Accra Tuesday. The 9,800 kilometre cable, which will link Ghana to the rest of Africa, Europe and America, has been laid under the sea from Lagos to Accra. Globacom contracted Alcatel-Lucent of France to fix the fibre optic cable which will carry data and Internet traffic within Ghana, West Africa and the rest of the world. Ghana thus becomes the third country, after Nigeria and Benin, to have the under-sea fibre optic cable. Globacom has already fixed the cable in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The optic cable was fixed by a technical crew on board a vessel. The Minister of Communications, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Globacom, Mr Paddy Adenuga; the Director-General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Mr Bernard Forson, the General Manager of Alcatel-Lucent, Mr Marco Rebbechi, and the Project Director of Alcatel-Lucent, Mr Mitesh Chauhan, were at the Osu Beach to witness the arrival of the cable. Alcatel-Lucent used the occasion to formally hand over the cable to Globacom. Mr Adenuga said the submarine cable would provide cost-effective voice, data, video and e-commerce services across Africa, Europe and the rest of the world. He said the submarine cable, the first to be established by a single company, would provide crystal clear voice calls and high speed data and Internet transmis-sion services. He said the unique feature of the submarine cable was its ability to connect Ghana directly to the United Kingdom and further to the United States, the two major data hubs of the world. Mr Adenuga said it was cheaper to operate the submarine cable and that would automatically bring down the rates of telecommunications services, besides its reliability. According to the Glo I Project Manager, Mr Kayode Adebiyi, the cable offered 99.9 per cent up time reliability, world-class, long distance voice, video and data communication services to the African customer. He mentioned on-line diagnosis of ailments, video conferencing, distance learning, reliable data, voice and video connectivity and e-banking as some of the facilities that could be provided by the cable. Mr Iddrisu said the laying of the cable in Accra marked a milestone in the telecommunications landscape of Ghana "in our quest to improve upon the delivery of improved communications infrastructure and services to enhance efficient and affordable data services and management". He said in line with the government's commitment to increase broadband uptake and penetration in the country, his ministry gave policy directives to the NCA to promote investment in telecommunication facilities, including fibre optic-based network transmission and submarine cable landing ser-' vices. "The landing of Glo 1 submarine cable in Ghana along the west coast of Africa is a positive manifestation of an environment that is open, competitive and conducive for fruitful investment as made by Glo Mobile Ghana Limited," he said. Mr lddrisu commended Globacom for taking advantage of the healthy investment climate in Ghana to invest in ICT infrastructure which would facilitate the expansion of market opportunities for broadband service providers and thereby help reduce transaction cost for broadband services. He said currently fibre optic capacity in Ghana was 120 gigabytes per second and indicated that with the emergence of the submarine cable the capacity would increase to 640 gigabytes per second and an ultimate capacity of 2,5 terabytes per second, "thus increasing up time reliability to 99.9 per cent". Mr Forson described the arrival of the cable to Ghana as a positive development in the country's telecommunication industry. Source: Daily Graphic