SUBMARINE CABLE- MAIN ONE CABLE THE TRAIL BLASER.

The concept of wiring two continents together is far older than most people might know. Telegraphers on both sides of the ocean took up a Shakespearean line from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” where Puck says, “I’ll put a girdle `round the earth in forty minutes.”

The story really began in 1795 when a Spaniard named Salva suggested the idea of underwater telegraphic communication. But nothing significant happened until 1850 when a single wire cable manufactured by the Gutta Percha Company was laid between England and France. International telecommunications had started.

The truth is that in 1858, nobody knew what Ohm’s Law really was (in fact, Georg Ohm had been ridiculed by many of his peers for suggesting his “law”); nobody knew what would happen to an electrical pulse in a piece of wire thousands of miles long, and nobody had an inkling of knowledge about any differences in potential between two points on the surface of the earth thousands of miles apart…all of which added up to the transmission of signals so feeble and slow that this cable was doomed to commercial, if not physical failure.

Unfortunately, the first cable did not last very long – on the night after it was connected a French fisherman caught the cable and cut a length out of it. A heavier armoured cable with four conductors was successfully laid the following year. For the first time two countries separated by sea were able to communicate by means of the electric telegraph.

   A boom in the laying of submarine cables followed. Many cables were placed in service across the Irish Sea, the North Sea, the Mediterranean and even the Black Sea.

    The greatest challenge at that period was the laying of the first Trans-Atlantic cable. It is hard now to realise just what an enormous task this was. The 2,500 miles (4025km) of cable took a total of 20,500 miles (33,000km) of copper wire for the conductor, and the outer sheathing took 367,000 miles (590,500km) of iron wire. The total length of wire used was enough to go round the world thirteen times.

   The cable was loaded into two specially converted warships, one British and one American. The laying of the cable from the USS Niagara, steaming west from Ireland lasted only a few days. After 300 miles (482km) the cable snapped.

   A second attempt with laying commencing in mid-Atlantic suffered the same fate. But on the third attempt, despite some very rough weather, luck – and the cable – held, and in August, 1858 the Old World and the New were joined telegraphically if only for a short time. The cable failed on September 1, and it was not until July, 1866, that the first really successful Atlantic cable was laid by the S.S. Great Eastern.

   Cables multiplied. News which had previously taken up to six months to reach distant parts of the world could now be relayed in a matter of hours; in 1902 the “All Red” route was completed.

   This consisted of a series of cable links across the Pacific Ocean, connecting New Zealand and Australia with Vancouver and through the Trans-Canada and Atlantic lines to Europe.

In both WWI and WWII, an accepted act of war was to cut the enemy’s submarine telegraph cables, splice onto them, and run them ashore to your own cable station — and *keep* the captured cable after the war. Germany lost its cables to the U.S. in both World Wars that way, while the Allies cut Japanese cables throughout the Pacific, and only put them back together after the wars.

 In 1956 the first submarine cable incorporating repeaters came into operation across the Atlantic. With a capacity of 36 two-way voice channels, each capable of subdivision into a number of telegraph channels, TAT-1 as it was called, demonstrated the great potential of this new form of telecommunications and triggered an explosion in public demand for international telecommunications facilities.

By December 1961, the first link, CANTAT-1 providing 80 two-way voice circuits had been opened between Britain and Canada, and by July 1 962 Australia and New Zealand were in communication through the first stage of the second link, COMPAC. In December of the same year the second stage from Auckland to Fiji was opened. The laying of the final stages, Fiji to Hawaii and Hawaii to Canada soon followed and the completed COMPAC cable was opened on December 3, 1963.

   Although these new telecommunications systems were created to satisfy a demand, they in turn created heavier demands and a vast network of cables has been laid beneath the seas of the world.

   In 1975 the 480 circuit TASMAN Cable was completed to Australia. ANZCAN Cable, which replaced COMPAC Cable, was the last of the Pacific Ocean analogue cables to be installed to Australia. A-I-S Cable which lands at Perth, WA is of the same design as ANZCAN Cable and was the last of Telstra’s analogue cables to be installed. All cables installed since A-I-S have been of fiber optic design.

The entrance of Main One Cable Company comes at an opportune time to unlock the constrained West African telecommunications market and catalyze the economic potential of the region. The Main One Project is a massive and very ambitious cross-continental sub-marine fiber network that will digitally connect Africa with the rest of the world. The Main One project, whose total cost amounts to about USD 240 million, involves the laying of 7,000 kilometers of submarine fiber optic cable between Seixal (a suburb of Lisbon) in Portugal, Accra in Ghana, and Lagos in Nigeria. The system includes subsequent branching units to the Canary Islands, Morocco, Senegal, and Cote d’Ivoire. The 1.92 Tbps of available bandwidth will be leased wholesale to telecom operators and internet service providers on an open access basis, thereby encouraging competitive pricing and a large customer base.

The celebration of the final splice of the Main One submarine cable, a project financed in part by the African Development Bank (AfDB) through its private sector window, was held on Wednesday, 19 May 2010 at the Tema Port in Ghana.

The project has from inception been singularly distinguished by a strict conformity with expressly stated project timelines. All major historic milestones have conformed to earlier projections.

In 2008, the Main One project carried out all necessary desk-top research and applied for the requisite survey and operational permits. Among other activities, it also applied for and successfully obtained the first ever submarine cable landing licenses to be issued in Nigeria and Ghana, respectively.

Main One obtained the necessary marine survey permits in January 2009 and commenced marine route survey operations afterwards. In May, it began cable manufacturing alongside the manufacture of Repeater Assemblies.

By June, Main One had concluded its marine survey operations. It also commenced the construction of its cable landing stations in Accra, Ghana and Lagos, respectively based on designs earlier sourced in March and finalized in May. In Seixal, Portugal where the cable terminates, it is landing in an existing cable station with VSNL.

Still in June, the post survey route was reviewed and the final cable route, engineered. Very importantly, Main One Cable Company secured commitments for all of the $240million (two hundred and forty US Dollars), required to fully fund the first phase of the project.

This landing marks the successful completion of phase one of this project.

There is growing evidence that ICTs play a critical role in social development, particularly in sectors such as health, education, and agriculture and for addressing the Millennium Development Goals. The Main One project is expected to create hundreds of thousands of new Internet users who will be able to engage in e-learning, e-commerce, and online social networking. Better access to information enhances the people’s health, skills, employability, and their overall quality of life.

Main One is an important step towards lower cost of international telecommunications and significant expansion of internet access via submarine cable, which will lead to greater efficiency and more competitive business. Through the Main One project, Ghana and Nigeria will increase bandwidth availability, affordability, and reliability, which will reduce the cost of doing business, lead to job creation and create favorable conditions for higher real economic growth. The project will lead to the creation of new service-oriented businesses in the ICT sector, such as call centers, and innovative-instant messaging businesses such as mobile-based money transfers.

The cable, which goes live in June 2010, is bringing the much-expected international capacity into a region whose explosive growth in tele-density in recent years has been blighted by sub-optimal global connectivity.

In addition to the submarine operations, Main One is building two landing stations in Accra and Lagos which will be complete next month. Equipment installation and end-to-end testing of the cable system will then follow, prior to service launch in June.

Main One will provide open access to 1.92 Terabits per second of capacity to the West African region at prices less than 50 percent of current wholesale capacity prices.

The international capacity that Main One is bringing into the West African sub-region will consolidate the explosive growth of telecommunications in the sub-region in recent years. In addition to providing a major boost to Internet access, Main One will help to considerably minimize the difficulties of switching traffic between African countries and eliminate the inconveniences and added costs of first routing traffic to Europe.

The Main One Cable Company is wholly owned by African investors – African Finance Corporation, Nigeria; Pan African Infrastructure Development Fund, South Africa; FBN Capital, Nigeria; Skye Bank, Nigeria and Main Street Technologies, Nigeria, which is the project sponsor.

Engineer Akin Oni

 

“Bristow Nigeria Operations has the largest number of Nigerians at the management level,” Engineer Akin Oni

Engineer Akin Oni sat down with Tayo Adelaja and Shamsydeen Badmus in Lagos to discuss Bristow Group’s efforts in Nigeria and its plan towards Nigerianization in 2015; excerpts:

Q: Recently, the company signed a $1.5m agreement with NCAT, Zaria to provide technical support for the school, what informed this decision?

A: We have been in discussion with NCAT over the years. We were looking at assisting the school to build capacity and capability. There is no helicopter Engineering School in Nigeria at the moment. Personnel are mostly being trained in the UK, Canada, USA, and India. It takes a lot to bring in expatriates. Supporting NCAT makes it easier to support our operations in Nigeria. In NCAT, engineers spent 3years and come out with basic license. Meanwhile, it takes about 7years to build an engineer.  We felt challenged with the above scenario and the dearth of trained and skilled personnel in our organisation. When we started an intensive process to increase the number of engineers in our organization, we went to NCAT with our engineers, out of the discussions we had with the school came several ideas by which we can add values to the school. We are going to assist the school by providing laboratories for them, and we intend to also bring in highly experienced personnel to assist the school from schools and organizations in the United States. The classrooms shall be refurbished to meet the required world standard. We are looking at making the school conducive for learning, while increasing the number of trained personnel in Nigeria.

Q: What is the company policy on Indigenous recruitment and training?

A: Bristow Nigeria Operations has the largest number of Nigerians at the management level in line with the company policy of developing a large indigenous workforce and management to maximize local representation, while positively encouraging the communities the company has representation around the world. We are in the process of recruiting engineers. This is the Bristow’s 27th year of training programme that is Helicopter training. When the company placed an advertisement for recruitment of engineers, over 3000 applied from all over the country. Of the lots, 240 have been selected for final interview. The selection criteria are based solely on merit. We want to have people who are capable of handling helicopters, thus we have a rainbow coalition, that is if you are a Nigerian you are capable you get selected.

The selected candidates will undergo rigorous test, which includes aptitude and detailed medical test. A lot of candidates were dropped after failing this detailed medical test. The last phase of the interview is mentally tasking, as the candidates are given task and the interviewer will see how they can fix it. That test which is a problem solving exercise test the ability to focus, leadership and the reasoning power because we are in a safety related business.

After the interview, parents signed a bond with Bristow because of the cost of the training. The training takes place at the largest helicopter training in the world- Florida in USA and it belongs to us. It cost us about $210,000 to train our candidates that are successful in the interview. Actually, I am one of the lucky ones who got selected through same process and I am still here today and proud to be with the group.  The training in Bristow Academy often last for a year or more depending on the weather. At the end of the course, they were awarded a certificate that makes them a commercial pilot officer.

Q: After the training and with the number of people Bristow is training how do you integrate them into the system?

A: It is important to note that we introduce them gradually into the system. Towards the end of the course, say two to three months a decision is made in Lagos as to the type of helicopters they will be flying. There is a system of reports whereby they are monitored and reports are sent in on monthly basis. We have conversion training whereby they go for further training before they would be fully integrated into the system. This takes a month or longer. There are three layers of training before they can now fly the commercial aircraft. 

Q: How many of your trainees can you keep in the system?

A: It is a challenge. We are facing it squarely too. We won’t take more than we can accommodate. We have a lot of pressure to Nigerianise. The limit of what the system can take is the limit. We have a target of 2015 to be fully Nigerianise. Presently, Bristow has been the major source of providing the highly needed skilled personnel to this sector and evidence abound within the oil and gas sector. We had that responsibility of retaining those we spent so much on in our system. We have 51 operational aircraft in Nigeria today. However, a lot of this is helicopters. In the business, we have a market share of about 55 percent.  

Q: How threatened are you by competition?

A: No, no, no we are not afraid of competition, particularly when it is healthy. We are not taking competition for granted, but there are a lot of opportunities in the country. Bristow Helicopters is the largest aviation company in Nigeria, with 51 aircraft consisting mainly helicopters. Since 1958, Bristow has been actively operating in the country. Beginning with crop spraying in the Owerri oil plantations, it later refocused on the oil and gas industry in the 1960s. Today, Nigeria is Bristow’s second largest operation, second only to the European Business Unit, which includes Scotland, Norway and the Netherlands. However, if classified by country, Nigeria is Bristow’s largest market.

In May, 2006, Bristow Group had a contract with Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (Shell Nigeria) for an additional twenty-four months. Under this contract, the company provided and operated two AS332 Super Puma helicopter and two Sikorsky S76 helicopters, the contract estimated at $53m. We are going through a period where there are not many activities because many oil companies are concerned about the petroleum industry. We just hope that with increased activities, things will pick up. It is a very competitive environment.

Q: What are the major challenges of Bristow operations in the country?

A: Inadequate personnel and the huge age gap has been a major challenge not only to us but the industry in general. Also, we do not receive and we do not take, that is becoming a big problem. Really, it’s a huge problem if we have to get things done, we plan 6 months ahead. What that means is that we have to carry inventories and huge amount. We have our code of ethics, and some of our competitors with the same business ethic codes will face same issues. 

Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria Central Bank Governor

Nigeria Banks To Report Suspicious Cash Transactions of Politicians

Shamsydeen Badmus & Tayo Adelaja

Nigeria’s banking sector has been ordered to start reporting on suspicious cash transactions from people involved in politics. The new regulation requires banks to check the identity of anyone making a transaction above 250,000 naira (around 1,600 US dollars). Transactions will have to be reported if one of the accounts moving the cash belongs to people deemed to be “politically exposed”. This includes former heads of state, politicians, local government chairmen, court officials, soldiers and members of royal families. The regulation is part of the reform implemented by central bank governor Lamido Sanusi, which aims to alleviate Nigeria’s banking crisis and tackle corruption in the sector.

Nigeria is planning to spend up to two billion US dollars from its oil cash reserves to boost its economy in response to the global downturn, the country’s junior finance minister Remi Babalola announced this week. The National Economic Council has already approved the economic stimulus package, Mr Babalola said. Nigeria’s economy depends heavily on oil exports and the nine billion US dollar fund was set up to protect the country if the price of oil falls. However, economists have criticised the plan, fearing it might leave the country exposed if recovery in the global economy suffers a setback. Nigeria is the world’s eighth largest exporter of oil, but oil output has dropped by around a third due to rebel attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta.

Lamido Sanusi, Nigeria Central Bank Governor

Nigeria Bails Out Banks

By Tayo Adelaja

The Nigerian government is considering a temporary nationalisation of some underperforming banks, according to the country’s finance minister Mansur Muhtar. He talked about the possibility during a press conference in Istanbul, but emphasised that long-term nationalisation is not in the government’s plans. Nigeria announced it was rescuing four banks with 1.37 billion US dollars in loans and support last Friday. The country’s central bank governor Lamido Sanusi has finished a four-month long investigation into its banks in an attempt to rescue them after they ran up bad debts. He has fired at least eight chief executives, four of whom are now facing fraud charges.

Rilwanu Lukman, Nigeria's Petroleum Minister

 

China Seeks Nigeria’s  Oil

A Chinese state-owned oil company is negotiating drilling rights for several onshore oil blocks in Nigeria, the Financial Times reports today. China’s CNOOC is said to be attempting to buy six billion barrels of oil, equivalent to one sixth of Nigeria’s proven reserves. The deal could potentially pitch the Chinese into competition with Western companies including Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil, which dominate operations in the blocks under discussion. Chinese interest in the blocks is allowing the state to drive a harder bargain in the renewal of the 16 licenses. However, it is unclear whether Western companies would be forced to relinquish part of their stakes. Nigerian Oil Minister Rilwanu Lukman said the government is in talks with many companies, including CNOOC. Last week it emerged China is investing 16 billion dollars in oil exploration in Venezuela.

By Philip Emeagwali

emeagwali.com

Philip Emeagwali

Oil has made us billions and fuelled our economic stability, but oil has also become the bane of our existence. For some, it is a curse that has caused poverty and corruption, but for others it is an essential source of untold wealth and power. But as the gap between rich and poor countries continues to expand, it is clear that intellectual capital and technology rule the world, and that natural resources such as oil, gold, and diamonds are no longer the primary determinants of wealth.

Surprisingly, nations with few natural resources demonstrate greater economic growth rates than OPEC countries. Japan’s economic growth, driven by technological superiority, outpaces that of Saudi Arabia; South Korea is growing faster than oil-rich Nigeria; and Taiwan’s economy has moved well beyond that of oil-rich Venezuela. The United States and Norway are also rich in oil, yet their staggering economic growth comes from intellectual capital.

In reality, it is not money but intellectual capital that drives prosperity. More important, perhaps, is the reality that poverty is driven and sustained by a lack of intellectual capital. The intimate relationship between intellectual capital and economic growth is as old as humanity itself, and is well illustrated by this parable from ancient Babylon (modern-day Iraq). A man asked his children:

“If you had a choice between the clay of wisdom or a bag of gold, which would you choose?”

“The bag of gold, the bag of gold” the naïve children cried, not realizing that wisdom had the potential to earn them many more bags of gold in the future.

Seven thousand years later, Iraq — the cradle of civilization — has its own private bag of gold as it sits perched atop the world’s third largest oil reserves. Meanwhile, Israel, tucked away in the hostile terrain of a barren desert, has the clay of wisdom — the weightless wealth of intellectual capital embodied in the collective mind of its people.

The striking economic gap that persists between rich and poor nations has increased sevenfold over the past century to what is now an all-time high. The accumulation of intellectual capital by rich nations has helped broaden this gap because it has enabled them to control technology and collect hidden taxes from less affluent nations. For instance, Nigeria pays a 40-percent  “royalty” tax on its petroleum revenues to foreign oil companies that are ripping out its family jewels — the huge store of wealth in its oilfields. These oilfields started forming when prehistoric, dog-sized humans — our common ancestor with the apes — walked African grasslands on four legs.

It’s a shocking reality, but the deep oil reserves laid down by Mother Nature millions of years ago and nurtured through the millennia in Africa have been whittled away within decades. And, for the dubious privilege of surrendering its natural resources forever, Nigeria is required to pay half its petroleum revenue in the form of “royalties” to the rich kids on the global block, the United States and the Netherlands. That oilfield has been exchanged for a bowl of porridge, and the black gold that should serve the underserved in Nigeria is helping wealthy Westerners get wealthier.

Today, half the world’s population — three billion people — live on an average of $500 a year. In contrast, Bill Gates earns $500 every second. By controlling technology and taxing computer users, Gates has become wealthier than each of the 70 poorest nations on earth and using his financial might has conquered more territory than Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great combined.

While Bill Gates is the new millennium’s Prince of Technology, he is by no means the first to have taken on the huge potential offered by the realm of technology. The Romans used roads and military technology to expand their empire. And, for centuries, Britain ruled a quarter of the Earth due to its unparalleled ability to command maritime technology and conquer the Seven Seas.

Britain undoubtedly established itself as the world’s first superpower through its rapid and ruthless colonial expansion program. The British raised the Union Jack over Canada and Australia, India and Hong Kong, Egypt and Kenya, and countless other countries — even the United States. The Union Jack cast its shadow in every global time zone, giving rise to the saying, “The sun never sets on the British Empire,” a fact that was cold comfort to the colonized nations.

In the same way, the United States has embraced its technological supremacy, both offensively and defensively, to build its own global empire without a physical presence in any of its “colonies.” The sole remaining superpower is at the forefront of every major technological advancement, which it has used to become deeply embedded in three-quarters of the globe. The US has accomplished a virtual economic colonization manifesting its presence throughout the globe by harnessing the power of technology and capitalizing on its clay of wisdom.

Africa’s inability to realize its potential and embrace technology has left it at the mercy of the West. The time has come for Africa to seize the day and resist the efforts of America and others to leave their imprint and plunder its natural resources.

Numerous examples throughout history support the idea that technology can be used as a tool of oppression. And there’s little doubt that America’s technological advancement has allowed it to exploit natural resources around the world. This is particularly evident in Africa, where the US is exploiting oilfields beneath the pristine rainforest — and being rewarded with a 40-percent tax at the expense of the African people. This lends credence to history’s assertion that those who control technology oppress those who do not, eventually enslaving them and, finally, wielding power around the globe.

Nigerian-born Philip Emeagwali won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, the Nobel Prize of supercomputing. He has been called “a father of the Internet” by CNN and TIME; praised as an “unorthodox innovator [who] has pushed back the boundaries of oilfield science” by UPSTREAM, a leading European oil and gas industry journal; extolled as “one of the great minds of the Information Age” by former US president Bill Clinton, and voted history’s 35^th greatest African by New African.