BY GBADAMOSI ABIODUN ABDULLAHI
Liquid Dataport, a business of Cassava Technologies, a pan-African technology group, today announced it has launched the first terrestrial fibre connecting Mombasa to Johannesburg.
This new route, including a breakthrough and unique fibre link across DRC between Goma and Kananga, provides multiple landlocked countries with extra redundancy, resilience, connectivity to numerous data centres and cloud resources, and, most significantly, an alternative option in the event of a subsea cable outage between Kenya and South Africa.
“Cassava Technologies is committed to making digital inclusion a reality on the African continent. This milestone achieved by Liquid Dataport reiterates our commitment to a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind through our continuous investments towards improving and expanding our digital infrastructure. This route will not only bring increased access to high-speed connectivity, but will also improve lives and allow businesses to create and sustain millions of jobs,” says Hardy Pemhiwa, President and Group CEO of Cassava Technologies.
The exponential demand for connectivity directly results from the increasing adoption of digital technologies by enterprises across the continent. Consequently, there is an urgent need for service providers and international carriers like Liquid Dataport to cater to this growing demand seamlessly. This route that will connect South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the DRC is yet another testament to Liquid Dataport’s commitment to improving access to digital services for everyone in Africa dramatically.
Commenting on the launch of this new route, David Eurin, CEO of Liquid Dataport, said, “This is the first terrestrial-only cable connecting Mombasa to Johannesburg via DRC. It is the result of our significant fibre infrastructure investments in several countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, DRC, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. With this new route, we are able to provide our existing and future customers access to an intelligent network with increased resilience and low latency. It not only provides redundancy but was designed to provide additional capacity to the landlocked countries on the route with direct access to cloud resources on the African continent and beyond”.
This route offers hyperscalers, enterprises and wholesale carriers direct connectivity to data centres in Johannesburg and Nairobi. Investments on the Equiano Sea cable and significant capacity on the PEACE and 2Africa undersea fibre cables together with its extensive terrestrial cross-border fibre brodband network ensures that Liquid’s customers benefit from low-cost international capacity landing on both the Kenyan and South African shores wherever they need it on the Continent.
