Liquid Telecom has announced a direct land-based fibre link connecting East and West Africa. The development, which creates a coast-to-coast digital corridor goes live after the conclusion of a high-capacity fibre link that stretches up to 2600 kilometers through DRC.
The expansion will see millions of DRC nationals access Liquid’s services and products. In the same breath, thousands of businesses will be connected to the company’s broadband network that, for a while, ambitiously purposes to cover the entire continent and the rest of the world.
In addition, this project is unique or is the first of its kind because, until now, no land-based network existed between the two regions in Africa. For instance, network traffic between DRC’s Kinshasa and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was routed through London.
According to the firm, the new fibre link will see a significant cut in latency between major continents via Africa. Of course, there has been a growing need for robust connections among businesses in the region.
The link hooks up DRC to Tanzania and Zambia with onward connectivity to Liquid’s ‘One Africa’ broadband network that is reportedly nearing a 70,000-kilometre mark.
“Liquid Telecom has connected East to West Africa with the most direct digital corridor across the southern hemisphere. We have set a new benchmark and achieved a historic milestone in our vision to create a more connected Africa,” said Nic Rudnick, Group CEO, Liquid Telecom.
“What Africa has been lacking until now was a direct east to west telecommunications backbone. Liquid Telecom has achieved what African states and organizations have been contemplating for years without success. It deployed a high-capacity fibre optic backbone connecting subsea cables on the East Coast of Africa with cables on the West Coast of Africa,” said Dobek Pater Director at Africa Analysis.
The development connects Liquid’s network on the Atlantic coast at Muanda in DRC through the company’s subsea cable partners. The link then runs to East of Kinshasa and through state onto Lubumbashi in the South, connecting a series of cities in between. It then leaves the country to Zambia to link up with its terrestrial fibre network in the region.
