Daily Independent Online.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2004.
VGC completes N140m re-engineering project, rolls out services
By Emma Okonji
IT. Telecom Reporter
VGC Communications Limited, a subsidiary of Modern
Communications Technologies Limited, has completed its N140 million
re-engineering project of earth-to-surface cable connections, thus paving the
way for a re-launch of its full commercial services in Nigeria.
The project, an upgrade of existing earth cable that
was laid underneath the earth five years ago in Lagos, commenced in May this
year.
At a facility tour with journalists from Lagos last
week, the company’s General Manager, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, who spoke more
on the re-engineering process, said there was need to re-connect under-laid
cables to the surface of the earth, for the purpose of easy maintenance.
According to him, the company had been faced with the problem of opening dug
trenches where cables are laid each time it embarks on maintenance or about
signing a set of new subscribers on their network. Having completed the re-engineering process, the company has
come up with competitive tariff, additional services and new numbers in Lagos,
and has expanded its coverage area in Lagos to cover Dolphin, Victoria Island,
Ikoyi, Marina, and will soon have presence in Ikeja and Apapa area of Lagos.
VGC currently covers Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja,
with interconnectivity with all networks.
In Lagos, VGC has installed over 500, 000 kilometeres of underground
cable, a combination of primary and secondary networks, and has laid well over
15, 000 kilometres of optic fibre cable infrastructure as its network backbone.
It has variety of services such as conventional
digital voice telephony services, high speed data communications services,
Internet services dial-up and web hosting, digital subscriber line services
that integrates voice and data, domestic VSAT services, among others.
According to Adebayo, the company’s subscriber
access network uses standard digital transmission technology over copper and
optical fibre link, and the lines support voice, fax, Internet, video and high
speed data communications driven by underground cable infrastructure.
