Hardy Pemhiwa, president and group CEO of Cassava Technologies.

Cassava Technologies-owned Liquid Dataport has launched the first terrestrial fibre connecting Mombasa to Johannesburg.

Liquid Dataport announced the development today, saying this new route - which has a fibre link across DRC between Goma and Kananga - provides multiple landlocked countries with extra redundancy and connectivity.

Liquid Dataport’s new route will connect South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the DRC.

The new route offers hyper scalers, enterprises, and wholesale carriers direct connectivity to data centres and cloud resources in Johannesburg and Nairobi.

Most significantly, Liquid Dataport said, this was an alternative option in the event of a subsea cable outage between Kenya and South Africa.

The company said with exponential demand for connectivity there is an urgent need for service providers and international carriers like Liquid Dataport to cater to this growing demand seamlessly.

“Investments on the Equiano sea cable and significant capacity on the PEACE and 2Africa undersea fibre cables together with its extensive terrestrial cross-border fibre broadband network ensures that Liquid’s customers benefit from low-cost international capacity landing on both the Kenyan and South African shores wherever they need it on the continent,” said Liquid Dataport.

Hardy Pemhiwa, Group CEO of Cassava Technologies, commented: “This milestone achieved by Liquid Dataport reiterates our commitment to a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind through our continuous investments towards improving and expanding our digital infrastructure.

“This route will not only bring increased access to high-speed connectivity but will also improve lives and allow businesses to create and sustain millions of jobs.”

David Eurin, CEO of Liquid Dataport, said: “This is the first terrestrial-only cable connecting Mombasa to Johannesburg via DRC. It is the result of our significant fibre infrastructure investments in several countries, including Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, DRC, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“With this new route, we are able to provide our existing and future customers access to an intelligent network with increased resilience and low latency.

“It not only provides redundancy but was designed to provide additional capacity to the landlocked countries on the route with direct access to cloud resources on the African continent and beyond”.