Network provider, Paratus has invested in a 4160km long fibre network that spans all the way from the West to the East coast of Africa. The route — that would normally take more than 60 hours to drive with a car — can be crossed digitally in about 31 milliseconds.
The Trans-Kalahari Fibre (TKF) network extends the West Africa Cable System (WACS) cable landing station in Swakopmund to the EASSY cable landing station in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. And most impressively, Paratus says the route is under one single Autonomous System Number (ASN) — ‘a feat that has been eluding most African operators’.
Paratus Group COO, Schalk Erasmus says, ‘this project is part of Paratus Africa’s aggressive infrastructure expansion strategy with Nimbus Infrastructure. Nimbus Infrastructure is a Paratus Africa strategic partner and a significant shareholder in Paratus Namibia’.
According to the company, construction of the cable route from Windhoek to Swakopmund began in 2017 and at the end of April 2018, the second-phase route from Windhoek to the Botswana border was completed.
“This is a huge milestone and also a massive achievement. We can now deliver WACS capacity to land-locked countries in which we have operational branches including Botswana and Zambia,” he adds.
Erasmus continues, “this new route will allow operators to think differently about their requirements for diverse routes within and around the African continent. Paratus Africa will continue to extend fibre routes with own infrastructure builds in order to maintain uptime, reliability and scalability to its clients, should there be any degradation in service levels”.
“We believe that the fibre optic network provides high-quality reliability and scalability with high access speeds to contend with the demand on bandwidth. We certainly want to take advantage of the countless opportunities in Africa and we’re therefore engaging other land-locked nations to leverage our fibre backbone and WACS capacity,” he concludes.
Edited by Jenna Cook
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