Liquid Telecom Announces Terrestrial Cable Connecting East to West Africa

Liquid Telecom announced on Wednesday the launch of the fastest direct land-based fibre link connecting East to West Africa. This breakthrough coast-to-coast digital corridor follows the completion of Liquid Telecom’s new high-capacity fibre link running 2,600-kilometre (km) across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Liquid Telecom continues expanding its pan-African terrestrial fibre network rapidly.

Until recently, no direct, land-based fibre network existed between East and West Africa. Network traffic between Kinshasa in the DRC and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, for example, was routed via London. Liquid Telecom’s East to West fibre link promises significantly reduced latency between major continents via Africa. It also meets the growing demand from global enterprises for fast, reliable, high-capacity and cost-effective communication across the southern hemisphere.

This new extension connects the DRC to neighbouring Tanzania and Zambia with onward connectivity to Liquid Telecom’s ‘One Africa’ broadband network fast approaching 70,000km. It is central to the company’s vision to create a single fibre network spanning the entire African continent - North to South and East to West.

Africa has been lacking until now a direct east to west telecommunications backbone. Liquid Telecom deployed a high-capacity Pan Africa fibre optic backbone connecting subsea cables on the East Coast of Africa with cables on the West Coast of Africa. By doing this, it not only considerably shortened the communications route between East and West Africa and contributed to keeping the traffic local, it also laid the groundwork for connecting millions of Africa’s citizens (especially in the DRC) to the internet and the world. This is a significant milestone in continued expansion of modern telecommunications infrastructure across the African continent.

In 2018 Liquid Telecom launched a direct land-based fibre link between Cape Town and Cairo. And in July this year, Liquid Telecom started work on connecting South Sudan to the rest of the continent. By connecting East to West Africa via DRC with a direct land-based fibre link, more African cities, more communities and more businesses will have access to reliable and faster internet connections than ever, and many for the first time.

Liquid Telecom continues expanding its ‘One Africa’ Broadband Network

Liquid Telecom’s latest fibre expansion connects the company’s network on the Atlantic coast at Muanda in the DRC, via Liquid Telecom’s international subsea cable partners. It then runs directly East to Kinshasa and through the DRC onto Lubumbashi in the South, connecting with other cities in between, including Kikwit, Kananga and Kolwezi. The link then crosses the DRC border into Zambia, integrating there with Liquid Telecom’s existing and rapidly expanding pan-African terrestrial fibre network.