Now three years after a number of undersea fibre cable systems have landed on the shores of the African continent, it’s easy to assume that any country on the continent has reasonable access to these cables. More so countries in East Africa that have a huge shoreline. Easy to assume yes, but not the case with Somalia. Apparently, owing to conflict, Somalia has so far had no access to a fibre cable and has had to rely on expensive satellite links for internet.
That will now change as Liquid Telecom, the continent’s largest terrestrial fibre network operator, has finalised a deal with the Somalia’s Hormuud Telecom to link the mobile operator to its fibre network directly. The cable link will become Somalia’s first fibre connection and is set to improve internet speeds in the horn of Africa.
The announcement was made at the ongoing AfricaCom conference in South Africa by Liquid Telecom chief executive, Nic Rudnick. Liquid Telecom will link Somalia to cables that land in Kenya where it already has presence.
Rudnick also disclosed at the conference that his company will spend $250 million over the next two years in its mission to connect people and businesses on the continent to the internet. Liquid Telecom’s fibre cable network in Africa now spans 17,000 km connecting Zimbabwe, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia and several other countries.
Source: yahoo.com
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