French telecommunications firm Orange is expanding its network in Burkina Faso and has started with the deployment of 580km of optical fibre between the West African country's capital city of Ouagadougou and its border with Côte d'Ivoire.

The cable passes Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso's second largest city inhabited by over 537,000 people.

Hadja Fatimata Ouattara Sanon, Burkina Faso's Minister of Development of the Digital Economy and Post, together with Stéphane Richard, Orange Group's Chairman and CEO, stressed the transformative capabilities of optical fibre.

"In the long term, the committed fibre optic network will reinforce the very high-speed telecom infrastructure network already deployed in the country by Orange," Sanon said.

Richard said that Orange will deploy 916km of fibre optic through which it can offer a set of services.

Orange has now deployed 139km of fibre infrastructure around Ouagadougou to support high-speed broadband services across the city.

The 139-km metropolitan optical fibre network in Ouagadougou has four loops to ensure resilience and serves all 12 districts of the capital and offers businesses and individuals high-speed Internet access.

Orange has also completed the Ouagadougou-Dakola project with 197 km of fibre-optic cables serving eight main urban areas and linking the country to international routes via Ghana.