Phase 3 Telecom (or "Phase 3 Technologies") is an aerial fiber-optic network infrastructure provider, providing connectivity, network management, and data storage services to wholesale, enterprise, and retail customers across West Africa. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria. Licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission in 2006 - the company in 2014, 2018, and 2022, added more kilometers to its existing coverage area with footprint expansion of its backbone, enterprise network , and broadband services. Phase operates and counting open-access aerial fiber-optic network. The company, for over two decades has been vital to growth in Africa's growing ICT market, implementing the Wire Nigeria Project—conceived by the Nigerian Communications Commission to help provide broadband communications access to rural communities. Phase 3 has a broad range of wholesale and enterprise clients including Glo, MTN, 9Mobile, Ntel, Airtel, Smile Communications, World Bank, Julius Berger, Unity Bank, etc. Some of the African countries where the company currently has partner operations include Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and the Republic of Niger.
History
Phase 3 was licensed in 2003, as a national long-distance operator and in 2006 entered into a major strategic Public–Private partnership to access powerlines to carry traffic for telecommunication operators. Phase 3 and Alheri Engineering were the two firms that beat 7 companies, including Siemens Nigeria, Suburban Telecom, NTL, Optic Networks Limited, and Backbone Company of Nigeria; to secure the deal. Such access to a telecommunications-enabled infrastructure was to make it possible for both companies (with Phase3 planned layout pegged for Nigeria's north and Alheri Engineering's for the west) to build out reliable fiber-optic backbone networks, to ensure faster broadband penetration and nationwide connectivity in the Nigeria unserved and under-served communities. Thus, making it possible for mobile operators, internet service providers, businesses, government agencies, and international organizations to take advantage of the huge bandwidth that is centrally managed. And, in March 2006, Phase 3 finalized a 15 Years agreement for the Design, Build, Finance, Operate (DBFO) Telecommunications Infrastructure model for the Western part of Nigeria". This largely positioned Phase 3 for expansive growth; the operational viability to run a layered range of telecoms, and value-added services as well as considerable access to foreign investment. More so, the company's capacity to offer non-discriminatory and non-competitive services to mobile operators became its distinctive factor as an open access network with unique right of way (RoW).
Regional connectivity
2009–2011
In 2009, Phase 3 investments cull in the Nigerian telecommunications space hit US$100 million with fiber optic building projects centering on transmission services. Further expansion saw the commencement of the US$200 million cross-country optic fiber coverage project for carrier-grade international voice services to PSTN, GSM, and Pan-European calling card operators, as well as Tier 1 traffic Carriers to interconnect' riding on their international connectivity through SAT3 in Lagos, where a Gateway provides a link to their POP in London, thus giving it connectivity with over 370 carriers. In September of that year, the company signed an exclusive right of way Concession Agreement with the Communautéé Electrique du Benin (CEB), the authority responsible for the operation of High Voltage Power lines in both Benin and Togo Republics; a development that gained them the longest regional terrestrial fiber network linking Nigeria to the Republic of Benin and Togo, with potentials for connections to Ghana and Burkina Faso from Togo; making them about the first regional fiber optic cable network provider in West Africa to operate national fiber optic cable backbone interconnecting six (6) West African countries.