Pan-African telecommunications group Liquid Telecom is eyeing further expansion across the African continent after completing its Phase 1 decade-long project of connecting a 60 000 km network from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt.
The group on Thursday reported that, following the completion of the Cairo link a few weeks ago, it will continue to deliver on its strategy to further expand and enhance its Pan-African fibre network – the largest of its kind in the region – and broaden its digital service offerings.
Liquid Telecom has been building a fibre network across sub-Saharan Africa covering Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, with a presence in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.
The Cape to Cairo terrestrial fibre network link was completed following a partnership with integrated telecom operator Telecom Egypt that resulted in Liquid linking its network through a new cross-border interconnection.
Speaking at the yearly MyBroadband Conference, held in Midrand on Thursday, Liquid Telecoms CEO Reshaad Sha told delegates that the initial project resulted in the connection of 660 towns and cities across the southern, central and east African countries.
Plans are now in place to cut across the entire continent and equip every major African city with high-speed fibre connectivity.
While the significant capacity of Africa’s vast submarine network sufficiently connects the coastal regions of its landing country, the task is now to bring connectivity further inland and bring connectivity into the landlocked countries.
Liquid’s network connects to the five main sub-sea cable systems, namely WACS, EASSy, SEACOM, SAT 3 and TEAMS, which link Africa to North American, Europe and Asia.