Liquid Dataport has launched its newest fibre route connecting Mombasa in Kenya to Muanda on the west coast of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The company, a subsidiary of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, announced the launch today, saying this is the shortest route connecting East and West Africa, reducing data transmission latency by 20 milliseconds.

“The much anticipated 3,800km route marks a new era in East-West connectivity on the continent, adding to Liquid’s One Africa Digital Network, which now spans 110,000 km,” says the company.

The new fibre route connects Kenya and DRC, passing through Uganda and Rwanda and, according to Liquid Dataport, ‘bringing more reliable and affordable broadband connectivity’ to over 40 million people living and working in all the major cities along the route.

The company says the latest route: ‘complements Liquid’s earlier achievement, already a first, in 2019, linking Dar es Salaam to Muanda on the West Coast of DR Congo via Zambia’.

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

The company says: “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.”

Hardy Pemhiwa, Group CEO, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, says: “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 complements 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.”

In a statement, the company notes: “The Mombasa-Muanda route will help global organisations looking for Internet resiliency avoid the Red Sea and Europe routes, which have become bottlenecks for global Internet traffic, and will provide faster fibre connectivity to landlocked countries on the African continent, creating significant attractiveness for growing connectivity hubs in Kenya and DRC.”

David Eurin, chief executive officer, Liquid Dataport, adds: “We have a significant number of wholesale, enterprise and hyperscale customers along this route, and we fully support them in operating their global networks. 

"The availability of our latest and shortest East to West 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.”