Liquid Telecom Lights Up Zambia, Looks North

One of the more ambitious terrestrial fiber projects in Africa is starting to go online.  Liquid Telecom says that the first phase of its buildout in Zambia has now been lit, connecting the capital Lusaka with the Copperbelt.  Phase 2 will bring the rest of the route on line, connecting Chirundu on the Zimbabwean border with Chiliabombwe on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  A map or two are definitely in order here, found over on TechZim:

 

The piece in question here is the upper blue segment on the right-hand map, I think.  The company plans to begin building further north into the DRC and eventually all the way west to Kinshasa, taking to the air to cross the jungles of Central Africa alongside high voltage lines.

Huawei is doing the installation work of course, as the Chinese firm has a rather dominant position in the African telecommunications market these days.

So much of hooking up Africa has been about submarine cables and landing stations and not about the vast interior that it is refreshing to hear of a terrestrial project making headway.  Malawi, another landlocked country in the region, and Mozambique along the eastern coast have also expressed interest in hooking up to the fiber.

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Categories: Internet Backbones