LAGOS: Expresso Ghana has unveiled its plans to land a new ACE undersea fiber optic cable in Ghana. This would make Expresso the third individual operator in Ghana to have landed a submarine fiber optic cable after MTN and Glo Mobile. The acronym ACE stands for Africa Coast to Europe fiber optics cable system and is owned by a consortium of financiers consisting of seventeen telecommunications operators. The 14,000km ACE cable originates from France and terminates in South Africa, with numerous landing stations including Nigeria, Sierra-Leone, Liberia and Spain. ACE promises to make a significant impact on economies of countries like Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau, which have never had submarine cables. This is because a direct access to broadband by those countries connected will set the foundation for their digital revolution. Ghana already has four submarine cables – SAT-3, Main One, Glo One and WACS (West Africa Communications System), and ACE would add on to the 7.2 terabits per second fiber capacity, and give the country even more redundant fiber, which opens it up for more businesses to come in. The consortium that owns ACE, also owns the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cable, which has a smaller capacity of between 120 and 130 Gigabits/second, and noted for failure, particular in 2009. Countries that are using the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE submarine cables, like Ghana, would have ACE as an alternative route, which would give them a higher level of redundancy in the event the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE fails. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/KVIyQ Tags: Expresso Ghana, Fiber Internet Section: Tech, West Africa
