Cape Town – Botswana, as well as Johannesburg in South Africa, now have access to an express fibre route to Europe.
Digital infrastructure provider Paratus Botswana has laid the last cable for its Botswana Kalahari fibre (BKF) route, which connects the the 144 terabit European Equiano fibre cable landing in Swakopmund, Namibia, to Lobatse, Botswana, and on to Johannesburg, reports Engineering News.
The new route has a latency of 123 milliseconds and supports wavelengths of up to 800 gigabytes.
The Paratus Group successfully landed the Equiano cable in Swakopmund in 2022. The undersea cable, which extends from southern Africa to Lisbon and beyond, also lands in Melkbosstrand, near Cape Town, according to ITWeb Africa.
The 800 km BKF terrestrial route, which cost BWP70 million, extends from Lobatse and Tlokweng gateways on the Botswana border with South Africa, through Gaborone, Molepolole and Letlhakeng, and then from Kang through to Charles Hill and the border into Namibia.
Paratus Botswana MD Shawn Bruwer. said the Botswana route was built entirely by local contractors and took about 18 months to complete. The infrastructure work included installing 15 000 gum poles and involved 10 368 splices on 216 termination joints.
Paratus Botswana has been operating in the country since 2016 and deployed its first fibre in 2020. By the end of 2023, it had laid more than 1 000 km of fibre in Botswana.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Picture: Supplied
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Compiled by African Insider
