•Rolls out 1262 new sites to boost coverage
By Amechi Ogbonna
L-R: Head of Enterprise Marketing, Globacom, Tega Agofure; Senior Manager, Marketing Communications, Jumobi Mofe-Damijo; Nollywood star, Ebube Nwagbo; Chief Technical officer, Roll out, Mr. Remi Makinde; Nollywood actress, Titilola Ajayi; Director of Customer Care, Catherine Bomett, and another Nollywood star, Uche Jombo, at a press conference to celebrate the company’s 20th Anniversary in Lagos, last weekend.
Globacom Limited, Nigeria’s leading multinational telecommunications company at the weekend, rolled out the drums to celebrate its landmark achievement in Nigeria’s highly competitive telecommunication industry.
At a special media interactive to set the tone the for the next phase of its growth trajectory, attended by prominent Nollywood personalities including the delectible pair of Ebube Nwagbo and Uche Jumbo among others, the firm found a good ground to renew its covenant of quality and tech -driven services to its customers pledging to unleash a new set of incentives that would enable them attain their professional best.
This came as the company unfolded new skill sets that would keep it ahead of competition over the next 20 years.
In a statement to announce the anniversary, the company said it had been two decades of transforming the telecommunications landscape, fulfilling dreams, and positively affecting the lives of millions of Nigerians.
Since 2003 when it opened shop , Globacom said it has remained committed to providing its customers with world-class communications and digital services through constant deployment of latest technologies in line with the corporate promise to build a robust fully integrated ICT network infrastructure that would consistently deliver value to its subscribers
“Glo has been at the forefront of revolutionary changes in the telecommunication sector in Nigeria. It crashed the cost of acquiring SIM cards in the country from about N25,000 to just about N200.
The network also disappointed bookmakers as it launched operations on a Per Second Billing platform, a feat others had described as impossible to achieve until another five years,” it explained.
It further noted that prominent among the innovations Glo pioneered in Nigeria were Blackberry, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Magic Plus, Glo Direct, Glo Fonepals, Africhat, Glo Mobile Internet, GloFleetmanager, M-Banking and Glo Mobile Office.
“Glo was also the first to launch 2.5G, 3G and 4G LTE networks. It also singlehandedly built an international submarine cable, Glo 1 to connect West Africa directly to the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. It also connects 12 nations in the West African sub region, including some of them that are landlocked.
“Glo1 is credited with crashing the cost of internet services and is today the preferred cable system by global OTT providers. It connects thousands of kilometres of national fibre to all parts of Nigeria.
“As we celebrate our achievements these past twenty years, we wish to acknowledge that Globacom’s huge success is a result of the support of millions of Nigerians. We wish to thank them for their love and patronage and for the unprecedented confidence they have consistently shown in the company”, the statement noted.
The network currently has over 61 million subscribers. Its massive investments in technology, array of value added services, strong and unique marketing initiatives have made it the first choice network for millions of subscribers.
Giving highlights of key achievements of the firm at the briefing, Globacom’s Chief Technical Officerat its corporate head office in Lagos, Remi Makinde, said the company has left indelible footprints on Nigeria’s telecommunications industry, having been the first to flagoff the per second billing at a time millions of Nigerians were being exploited with the per minute tariff of competitors, thereby saving them enormous resources they could use to meet other pressing financial needs.
He stated that beyond democratising SIM cards ownership and making them affordable to millions of citizens, Globacom had also sponsored many reality shows that had helped lift the nation’s entertainment industry to an enviable height.
Makinde said the company has over the last twenty years of operation invested hugely in network expansion to meet the growing needs of its subscribers including providing green energy solutions for small and medium enterprises in the country.
He said the tech service provider has also laid several kilometers of fiber optic cables across Nigeria and beyond its shores in the effort to increase broadband expansion to enable more citizens access to internet facilities.
On plans to further enhance subscriber benefit over the next twenty years, the CTO said Globacom has commenced the roll out of about 1262 new cell sites across the country to boost network coverage and capacity demand and in addition to plans set up 2000 each over the next four years.
“Our Transmission Future Plans will among others provide additional redundancy for Core IP network as Order has been placed to deploy dual core Routers in Lagos, Ibadan, Benin, Abuja, Ilorin, Enugu and PHC.
There are Transport and IP backhaul capacity enhancement to 100Gbps for Northern Nigeria and 800Gbps for Southern Nigeria, in addition to 500Km Fiber Protection Routes and city metros are in progress to improve the availability of 2G,3G and 4G services High-capacity MW will be deployed to support additional broadband and radio sites traffic backhaul.
Another 280 additional IP POPs are planned in Abuja, Ibadan, Benin, Port Harcourt and Lagos metros in 2024.”
He added “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 Advanced to ALL our sites nationwide has been completed.
Currently, we are upgrading our LTE sites with additional spectrum resources nationwide geared towards ensuring 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 – London is ongoing to accommodate our massive data growth for our direct interconnectivities with the likes of Google, Youtube and Facebook and other ISPs and cooperate bodies across all sectors of the economy.
We have also embarked on rollout of additional new 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.” He said
He said “Our transmission network has been upgraded from 300GBPS to 600GBPS as we invest massively on network expansion for bigger and more resilient operations.
In all these, the customers will be our key focus for innovation, cloud, Artificial Intelligence and very soon you will see driverless cars riding round the country running on Glo-network.”
What we are putting on the table for our subscribers is advanced Ultra High LTE for data and for business and no city or community will be left behind in our broadband offering.”
In his presentation, Tega Agofure – Head Enterprise Marketing, explained that GLO delights in adding value to the lives of its esteemed customers having been at the forefront in bringing amazing products & Services including Mobile services – Voice and state of the art 4G LTE Advance Data Service, Fixed line services – DIA, IPLC, Leased Lines, Value Added Services – BMC/BMD, Data Share, CRBT, RCS, Digital Services – Glo Cloud, E-Topup, Glo TV.
“At Globacom, we are continually seeking new ways to add value to the lives of our esteemed customers.
We assure our customers that we will not relent.
We will continue to meet and exceed customer expectations.
Agofure also restated the extent the company had gone in helping its customer enjoy other associated benefits extended to them in the course of implementing its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives where a total of 19 houses were gifted to loyal customers across the country last year.
But even as Globacom marks its 20th anniversary this year, it has assured that saimilar largess of 20 houses among other gifts are coming the way of its customers another round of CSR packages including cars, generators and other valuable gift items listed for the promo.
At a special event gala at the prestigious Eko Hotel on Victoria Island, Globacom’s Executive Director, Mrs Bella Disu, set the stage for a night of high class enterainment that featured popular music stars from
across the country. She stated that the gala was special for many reasons, one of which being that Globacom celebrated its 20th anniversary last August.
She said “We’re incredibly proud of this feat, which symbolises two decades of our commitment to excellent service delivery, quality, innovation, and outstanding communication strategies. This remarkable journey and the heights we’ve reached are all thanks to the visionary leadership and tenacity of our founder and Chairman, Dr Mike Adenuga Jr.
You’ll agree with me that the current pace of digital transformation is far quicker than what it was when Globacom started. What was once deemed impossible is now the norm. As a digital solutions provider, we embrace these unlimited opportunities to serve our customers by constantly investing in the latest tools and technology.
Tonight, we are thrilled to unveil a new communication direction that focuses more on powering and driving ambition, while ensuring success for our existing and future customers. These creative campaigns will undoubtedly inspire accolades for our hardworking Marketing Communications team. They deserve it, but I’ll let you in on a secret – The creative genius steering us and whipping up most of these ideas is none other than the great guru himself, our Chairman, Dr Mike Adenuga Jr. I’m not sure he would have wanted me to share that, but after 20 years of his creative direction, I think it’s fair to let the cat out of the bag!
Tonight, I’d also like to acknowledge those who have been with us every step of the way – Our dear partners and stakeholders – your contributions have been essential to Globacom’s success story over the past two decades, and our story would be incomplete without you.
We are excited about the next 20 years of serving our customers by pre-empting and fulfilling their needs in ways that help them achieve their ambitions.