Congo-Gabon section of $273m Central African Backbone fibre ready for service
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Congo-Gabon section of $273m Central African Backbone fibre ready for service

Work has finished on the Congo to Gabon section of the World Bank-funded fibre that will link up seven African nations.

Yves-Didier Miehakanda, the national coordinator for Congo of the Central African Backbone (CAB) project, said that the 520km of fibre will be in service shortly.

“[It] will be commissioned at the end of December in the presence of the respective ministers of digital economy of both nations,” said Miehakanda, quoted by the Ecofin news agency.

The fibre runs from Pointe-Noire on the Republic of Congo’s Atlantic Coast north to the border with Gabon via Dolisie and Mbinda. Work on the project started in early 2015.

This section of the CAB cost $30 million of a total put at $273 million.

The CAB is due to link seven countries in five construction phases: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Gabon, Republic of the Congo and São Tomé and Príncipe.

The Congo to Gabon section is the second stage of the CAB, but next year it will be extended from Congo to Cameroon and the Central African Republic. The project includes a data centre in Brazzaville, capital of Congo – which is directly across the Congo river from Kinshasa, the capital of DRC.

The two sections in Gabon and DRC are the most expensive of the CAB project, put at $109 million and $92 million respectively.






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