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7 ICT - MainOne submarine cable project (West Africa)
Size of investment: USD 240 million
Start date: 2008
End date: 2010
Project stage: maintenance
Project partners
• Public partners:
o Governments of Nigeria and Ghana (granted rights / licenses to operate the project in their
jurisdiction)
• Private partners:
o Africa Finance Corporation (AFC)
o African Development Bank (AfDB)
o Pan-African Infrastructure Development Fund
o Nigerian Banks: FBN Capital and Skye Bank
o KFW DEG (provides long-term financing and advice to private enterprises investing in
developing and emerging market countries)
o Main Street Technologies Nigeria (promoter)
Project description
The MainOne cable system is an underwater cable spanning approximately 14 000 km, with a 7 000
km cable linking Nigeria, Ghana and Portugal, and reserved branching units to Morocco, Senegal,
Côte d'Ivoire and the Canary Islands. The undersea fibre-optic cable was conceptualized to be
developed in two phases, with phase two deploying an additional 5 473 km of cable connectivity
to Angola and South Africa.
The MainOne cable system is the first private subsea cable along the West African coastline, owned
by the MainOne Cable Company based in Nigeria. MainOne began the construction project in
February 2008, and launched it for commercial service in 2010. The MainOne cable system has
been proven to provide capacity of at least 4.96 terabytes per second (Tbps). Today, MainOne
serves as a conduit for approximately 60 per cent of broadband bandwidth into Nigeria, and
its customers include Internet service providers, corporate clients, universities and government
28 Compendium of practices on innovative financing for SSC projects | January 2023
