Facebook Inc. and Liquid Intelligent Technologies, have partnered to lay 1,200kms of Fibre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The network will help create a digital corridor from the Atlantic Ocean through the Congo Rainforest to East Africa, and onto the Indian Ocean.
Liquid Technologies has been working on the digital corridor for more than two years, which now reaches Central DRC.
This corridor will connect DRC to its neighbouring countries including Angola, Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
The new build will stretch from Central DRC to the Eastern border with Rwanda and extend the reach of 2Africa, a major undersea cable that will land along both the East and West African coasts, and better connect Africa to the Middle East and Europe. Additionally, Liquid will employ more than 5,000 people from local communities to build the fibre network.
“This fibre build with Liquid Technologies is one of the most exciting projects we have worked on,” said Ibrahima Ba, Director of Network Investments, Emerging Markets at Facebook. “We know that deploying fibre in this region is not easy, but it is a crucial part of extending broadband access to under-connected areas. We look forward to seeing how our fibre build will help increase the availability and improve the affordability of high-quality internet in DRC.”
Liquid Technologies will own, build and operate the fibre network, and provide wholesale services to mobile network operators and internet service providers.
