Liquid Dataport, a business of Liquid Intelligent Technologies has launched its newest fibre route connecting Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Muanda, a coastal town on the Atlantic Ocean in the DRC.

The 3,800km route marks a new era in East-West connectivity on the continent, adding to Liquid’s One Africa Digital Network, which now covers about 110,000Km.

The fibre link will be the shortest route connecting East to West Africa and is expected to cut data transmission latency by 20 milliseconds.

The Mombasa-Muanda route will help multinationals seeking internet resiliency to avoid the Red Sea and Europe routes, which have become bottlenecks for global internet traffic.

It will also be offering faster fibre connectivity to landlocked countries in Africa, raising significantly the attractiveness for growing connectivity hubs in Kenya and DRC.

“We have a significant number of wholesale, enterprise and hyperscale customers along this route, and we fully support them in operating their global networks," said David Eurin, CEO, Liquid Dataport.

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The fibre route brings many proven economic and social benefits, from providing access to online educational resources to creating more jobs and driving the adoption of new technologies, he explained.

The new fibre link connects Kenya and mineral-rich DRC, and will be passing through Uganda and Rwanda providing reliable and affordable broadband service to about 40 million people along its main route.

The Kenya-DRC route adds to Liquid’s 2019 fibre network linking Dar Es Salaam to Muanda on the West Coast of  DRC via Zambia.

Hardy Pemhiwa, President & Group Chief Executive Officer of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, said, “The real challenge today is closing the access-usage gap in Africa so that more Africans can use the internet technologies available to them, now and in the future. This East-West route which compliments our existing Pan Africa fibre network, is significant because it is helping to solve that problem – it not only brings global traffic to the continent but also improves the cost economics of Africa’s broadband Internet access.”

The East-West route enables Liquid’s customers to take advantage of capacities ranging from 1Mbps to 100,000Mbps.

It enables cloud supplier redundancy with access to multiple data centres and cable landing stations, ensuring maximum uptime.

This is hugely beneficial to the many businesses in East, Central  and Southern Africa that are embarking on their digital transformation journey.

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