Visit to the New ICT Hub for Nigeria: Main One

Ambassador Sanders at the site

Main One was a fabulous eye opener for me, and showcases the new ICT outlook for Nigeria, the West Africa Region, and the Continent. I was given a tour of the facilities on July 8, 2010. What is Main One then? It is the central hub of where the fiber optic submarine cable landed in Nigeria which will provide not only more Internet capacity and bandwidth to this country of 150 million people, but also leads the way for new IT platforms and applications from mobile banking, forex exchanges, education technologies and the like. Mostly importantly, it will reduce the cost to customers bringing the average cost down to $500 per mega bite month versus $2k for satellite use. The U.S. private sector contribution was in the submarine cable constructed by Tyco Electronics for $250 million. On ground as part of Main One there are 5 institutional investors. It is a fantastic new infrastructure and ICT development for Nigeria.