MainOne fibre is already available on the Herbert Macaulay corridor, but I hear that the pricing is prohibitive. At least to businesses of our scale (we’ve got ten people). And their SME-in-a-box thing is available only in Ikeja and Apapa.
Yesterday, I observed two IPNX workmen (I knew from their jackets) running fibre over what appear to be telephone poles very close to Casino Bus Stop. I approached them to find out what it would take to get them to run it into my building on the other side of the road, but I didn’t get a lot out of them, probably because the higher ups never tell the lower downs anything, or because the lower downs don’t care, or both. I’m making deeper inquiries though. Some people who should know say the plan is for the connection to run all the way down to Commercial Avenue. Their customer care people don’t know anything either, so guess I’ll have to visit their Ikeja office on Friday.
I live in one of the estates off Opebi, Awuse to be specific. Last year, IPNX laid fibre along the Opebi/Allen avenue stretch. When I saw this, I called their customer care people to ask if I could get fibre to my home and I was told I had to be living along the main road. I understood they probably didn’t have permit to dig through to my place plus the cost for just me would be prohibitive anyway, so I asked if they could use the utility poles and was told it was impossible.
I guess I was talking to the wrong person as well.
I’ll never understand this main road thing they keep saying, defies commonsense. Why would you run an entire artery of fibre just to serve people on the edge of the road, what percent of the addressable market is that?
From what I know, Fibres are meant to be buried even from an engineering perspective. I don’t know if there are new ones that don’t require that. With main road thing, it is the way fibres are. Unlike typical wires, you’ll have to splice them at every junction to go into streets. More splicing, more losses if I recall correctly. Everything from there goes complicated, and needing extra resources so main road first.
Fibre cables can curl in circles. If done right, they don’t need splicing to turn street corners. Plus, you’d have to splice anyway to connect customers living along the main road.
I get your point totally. But I wish I could draw on Radar, but think a fibre cable running a main street, and there are 10 sub-streets connecting to the main. You can’t or won’t just curl into those sub-streets.
Mind you, most Lagos cities have sub-sub-sub-streets, so point is, you’ll have to splice all the way. At every splicing point, expect losses.
For those losses not to matter, you can’t just use a fibre cable then. It’ll have to be bundle. And if it must be bundle, that can’t go over electric poles. And if not electric poles, you’ll have to bury. Then all concomitant problem follows from burying like…you already know.
Point is, I can empathize with the technical wahala to fully fibre-connect a Lagos city like Yaba or any for that matter. But then again, this is based on 6 year old knowledge I have on this. New methods might have emerged, I’ll look up your link.
Another point to add: telco operators will be right to assume top businesses are on the main street, and the cost to cater for those first might be worth it before exploring inner city and streets full on.
Why take on the endeavor of investing in getting fibre cables for homes, and offices that might not pay? Not saying they won’t pay, but think this as a beta pilot program before full investment.
As @akindolu as said and with the little knowledge I have, it might be a bit expensive for the companies to run especially in places where the planning was poor and not to mention the losses from the splitting and there’s only so much kink a fibre cable can take.
I would ask my colleague who is into fibre optics to provide more info and revert back to this topic
