This follows a thorough and transparent vendors selection process, as well as extensive design review of the planned Tier III Modular facility, leading to the award of engineering and civil build contracts to global OEM and local civil and architectural consultant. Full mobilization and preliminary construction activities has therefore commenced at the site, subsequent to the procurement of relevant construction and environmental permits for the project by MainOne, and with the easing of the government-imposed lock-down restriction in Accra in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic.

As indicated during the announcement last year, the Tier III facility will be constructed on secured 4,047 sqm land area in Appolonia. The facility is planned to be built and operated in accordance with the same operational standards currently maintained at MainOne and West Africa’s largest Tier III certified and only PCI DCSS Data Center, MDXi Lagos, in Nigeria. When completed, it will deliver best in class facility uptime and operational performance at very efficient shared services cost for hosting and operating core IT infrastructure and services.

The project, which was initially scheduled for completion in December 2020 will, now be ready for services at the end of quarter 1 in 2021 due to the delays caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the global supply chain and the delivery of key component of the facility.

The 100-rack world-class facility will feature private colocation whitespace, enterprise-grade 24x7 multi-level security and video surveillance, precision cooling, safety and fire suppression systems with multiple redundancies built into the power, cooling and security infrastructure. It will be operated as a carrier neutral facility with connectivity options to the MainOne submarine cable system, extensive global network and partners, as well as a host of other international connectivity cable systems and networks. It will therefore offer open access connectivity options to all MNOs, ISPs, corporate and public sector customers in Ghana as well as access to various Internet Exchanges including the GIX (Ghana), IXPN (Nigeria), LINX (London), DECIX (Frankfurt/Lisbon), and Cote d’Ivoire Internet Exchange (CIVIX), and the West Africa Internet Exchange (WAF-IX), hosted by MainOne in Nigeria.