Since it started the transformation of the telecommunications landscape in 2003, Globacom Telecommunications has remained unrelenting in its deployment of latest technologies towards building a robust and fully integrated ICT network infrastructure for optimum digital service, writes ANTHONY NWACHUKWU in Lagos.
Two decades of revolutionary operations already achieved, and with over 61 million subscribers across board, the digital solutions provider has set sights on more advanced and futuristic packages to ease corporate and individual lives.
This will range from digital packages to promote big corporate entities and grow the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), personal entertainment, including the GLO TV with over 50 live channels and exclusive Glo original movies premiering, to the more advanced and futuristic (in-Nigeria) driverless cars on the digital terrain.
It is already with us, given the network’s penchant for smashing competitors’ world of impossibilities – like crashing their price of SIM card from N25,000 to N200, and pioneering per second billing five years since the frontrunners started ripping off the entire nation with their N50 per minute (most often per second with the incessant dropped calls) billing.
In the past, Glo had pioneered many innovations in Nigeria, including Blackberry, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Magic Plus, Glo Direct, Glo Fonepals, Africhat, Glo Mobile Internet, GloFleetmanager, M-Banking and Glo Mobile Office.
Being the first to launch the 2.5G, 3G and 4G LTE networks, it also singlehandedly built Glo 1 – the international submarine cable directly connecting West Africa to the United Kingdom and the entire world, including 12 West African nations. Expectedly, it also crashed the cost of internet services and the global OTT providers’ preferred cable system, just as it connects all parts of Nigeria with thousands of kilometres of national optic fibre.
As it storms into another decade, the company said ahead its “Evening with Glo” last weekend: “We have carried out huge network investments in the following areas to ensure we provide our customers with desired LTE advanced ultra-high-speed streaming quality and experience: Rollout of LTE Advance to all our sites nationwide has been completed.
“Currently, we are upgrading our LTE sites with additional spectrum resources nationwide, geared towards ensuring that we always provide premium voice and high-speed data user-experience. Our national optic fiber and IP/MPLS backbone and metro network is also currently being expanded with additional 5,000km from current span of 14,000km.
“Further capacity expansion of our Glo1 submarine optical fiber infrastructure from Lagos to London is ongoing to accommodate our massive data growth for our direct interconnectivities with ISPs and cooperate bodies across all sectors of the economy.
“We have also embarked on rollout of new additional sites to further expand our footprint nationwide with additional scope of 2,000 sites per year. This is to address the densification and coverage enhancement due to constantly growing capacity demand trends.”
To remain on top, however, Glo has 9109 Advanced LTE sites across Nigeria, with 1262 new sites currently being rolled out to boost coverage and capacity demands, and 2000 new sites to be added yearly for the next four years.
In the past one year, it installed hybrid power solutions with Li batteries to improve up-time in 600 sites, and also replaced 4000 old batteries in BTS sites to enhance back-up time.
In its transmission network expansion programme, it upgraded IP Backhaul from 300Gbps to 600Gbps, core IP platform capability from 200Gbps to 2Tbsp between Lagos, Ibadan, Benin, Abuja, Ilorin, Enugu and Port Harcourt, while adding 36 new DWDM nodes to cater for new fiber routes providing additional protection for Enugu, Ilorin and Kano regions, among others.
Of interests to business concerns across demographics, especially for social media needs, is the Glo direct interconnectivity with Google, Youtube and Facebook, which uses 200G capacity in Nigeria to provide better browsing speed and customer experience, while upgrade by upgrade with additional 100G is in progress.
Currently, its transmission network expansion for domestic and international routes has seen the deployment of 1500 High-capacity MW links to backhaul new Advanced LTE sites, high-capacity links deployed in Lagos, Benin and Abuja metros to protect data and voice services, while 680 existing MW links upgrade is in progress to increase data throughput, as well as Glo1 submarine cable capacity expansion and Glo1 landing station domestic capacity backhaul upgrade.
For voice clarity, the network has also four new cloud MSC (Victoria Island, Oregun, Benin and Abuja) with 440k Erlang Traffic capacity, and three new SBC (Lagos, Benin and Abuja) with 160K session capacity addition to mitigate congestion on interconnects.
Also, new Cloud Data Core platform was commissioned and integrated in Victoria Island and Benin; old GGSN and CG platforms migrated to new Cloud UGW and CG, while over 150 Private Enterprise Connection and SIP connections were created.
The voice and data core network expansion will include new cloud MSC and SBCs planned for PH, Kano and Ibadan, and additional 200Ggps PS Core and 4Mn additional PDP sessions, while upgrade is ongoing to address the injection of over 6,000 additional Advanced LTE sites in 2024.
Glo has already set out its future transmission plans to include providing “additional redundancy for Core IP network, while order has been placed to deploy dual core routers in Lagos, Ibadan, Benin, Abuja, Ilorin, Enugu and Port Harcourt.
Others include transport and IP backhaul capacity enhancement to 100Gbps for Northern Nigeria and 800Gbps for Southern Nigeria; additional 500km fiber protection routes and city metros are in progress to improve the availability of 2G,3G and 4G services, while high-capacity MW will be deployed to support additional broadband and radio sites traffic backhaul. Also, 280 additional IP POPs are planned for Abuja, Ibadan, Benin, Port Harcourt and Lagos metros in 2024.
Nevertheless, with the core of its business drive being to innovate, provide value and enhance lives, Glo has continued to invest in life-changing experiences for many. In the past one year alone, its reach-out have included the combo of 20 houses, 24 cars, 100 generators, 1,000 fans and 200 sewing machines in a single promo.
The others are the Berekete 10X, which gives the new subscriber instant N1000 bonus airtime, 400 per cent voice bonus on every N100 recharge, and 500 per cent data bonus on every N100 recharge for four months, while call tariffs for voice has remained 11k/s to all networks – the lowest. There are also the Glo Prime, Glo Sponsored Data and Gifting, Glo Business Outsourcing, and Glo SME in a Box.
