Glo raises alarm over cable cut by LCC

Globacom Limited, has raised alarm over the cutting of its Fibre Optic cables along the Lekki-Epe Expressway in Lagos by the Lekki Concession Company (LCC), thus causing service disruption on the Glo network.

According to officials of Globacom, this cut in cable has affected the quality of services to Glo subscribers.

The telco explained that the cut resulted in substantial damages to its Optic Fibre Cable from Saka Tinubu in Victoria Island to Ijebu Ode in Ogun State.

Affirming this, Head, Glo Fixed, Mr. Ashok Nehra, said, in the past few weeks, the optic fibre cable connecting the Lagos-Ijebu Ode route has been cut along the Lekki-Epe axis no less than five times.

This, he said, has consequences in service disruptions to Glo subscribers particularly from Lagos towards the eastern part of the country including Ijebu Ode, Benin, Warri, Port Harcourt, Ontisha, Awka, Aba, Owerri and Enugu.

Mr. Nehra explained that some of the Automated Teller Machines (ATM), General Packet Radio Services (GPRS) and banking services linked to the network through leased lines and bandwidth to banks, oil companies , Private Telephone Operators (PTOs) and other valuable customers have witnessed intermittent disorder since the fibre cable was down.

“Data services are affected the most and our subscribers experience congestion and call drops during the time services are down as a result of these cuts,” he said.

“The most recent damage to the cable was Thursday. The failure of the fibre transmission network was traced to a cut at the 9.2 kilometre from Saka Switch stretch along Lekki-Epe Expressway,” he said, stressing that these disruptions made it impossible to offer seamless telecom services to customers.

“We have complained several times to LCC but the damage keeps recurring,” Nehra said.
“We had even upon the directive of LCC shifted the cable to where they said was a safe passage, yet their contractors still cut our cables frequently. Apart from the inconvenience to our subscribers,” he said.

Insisting that the disruptions have led to huge losses in terms of drop in revenue and the damaged cables are also repaired at heavy cost to the network, just as Globacom has initiated moves to bring the issue to the notice of telecom industry regulator, the Nigerian CommunicationsCommission (NCC), adding that the network will continue to strive tooffer world class services to its customers, despite all odds.

Globacom’s optic fibre cable offers high speed transmission of point-to-point voice, high speed data, fax and video and provides large bandwidth for offices and corporate organizations. It also makes available to other telecom companies, internet service providers, individual businesses, manufacturers, oil companies, banks and financial institutions, governments and other corporate organizations a much better alternative for their bulk voice and data transmission requirements.

The Glo fibre cable network has already covered the entire Lagos-Abeokuta-Ibadan route, Lagos-Ijebu Ode-Ore-Benin-Sapele-Warri-Kaima (Yenegoa junction)-Port Harcourt route, Port Harcourt-Aba-Owerri-Enugu, Onitsha-Awka, Owerri-Onitsha route and the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano and Abuja-Minna routes.

Other routes that will soon be covered in the first phase of the project spanning 10,000 km include Enugu-Oturkpo-Makurdi, Markudi-Lafia-Abuja and Ibadan-Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa-Bida-Minna-Abuja routes.

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