This archive report was first published on 14 November 2019.
On November 14, 2019, Liquid Telecom launched the fastest direct land-based fibre link connecting East to West Africa, a breakthrough coast-to-coast digital corridor that follows the completion of Liquid Telecom's new high-capacity fibre link running 2,600-kilometre across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
This expansion connects millions of DRC citizens and thousands of businesses to Liquid Telecom's 'One Africa' broadband network linking the African continent to the rest of the world. The link promises significantly reduced latency between major continents via Africa and meets the growing demand from global enterprises for fast, reliable, high-capacity and cost-effective communication across the southern hemisphere.
“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.
Sound infrastructure development has the potential to transform the prosperity and livelihood of the DRC population. In Kinshasa alone, some of the city's 11 million population will no longer have to rely solely on mobile broadband – they will have access to high-speed, reliable internet directly into their homes.
“Bringing major continents closer together via the most direct fibre link connecting East to West Africa via DRC is history in the making,” said Nic Rudnick. “In 2018 Liquid Telecom launched a direct land-based fibre link between Cape Town and Cairo and in July this year, we started work on connecting South Sudan to the rest of the continent.
“What Africa has been lacking until now was a direct east to west telecommunications backbone. Liquid Telecom has achieved what African states and organisations 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.
