Grace Ashiru
Paratus Zambia has announced an investment agreement with Meta to see the business build fibre networks in underserved areas of the country.
According to ITNews Africa, the company Paratus Zambia, a subsidiary of the Paratus Group, would construct a 900-kilometre-long open-access metro fibre network in ten of Zambia’s cities and towns.
Ndola, Kitwe, Chingola Livingstone, Chililabombwe, Solwezi, Chambishi, Mufulira Kabwe, and Luanshya are just some of the cities that will have access to the metro fibre.
They will do the project in two parts. The first part will bring fibre to six cities in January 2023, but we don’t know which ones. Before the end of 2023, they will add fibre connectivity to the last four cities.
The MD of Paratus Zambia, Marius Van Vuuren, says that work has already started and that the company hopes to finish the first 280km by November so that the line can be turned on by early January.
This is a big deal for Paratus because it’s essential for the Zambian economy and because we’ll be helping millions of people and hundreds of businesses connect to the Internet through a faster and safer fibre network, according to ITNews Africa, which quoted Van Vuuren.
With operational teams in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, and Zambia, Paratus has a strong presence in Africa. Aside from this, its extended network offers a service focused on satellite connections in 37 African countries.
Paratus opened a new data centre outside Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city, this year. It is the first building the company has built in the country.
The Armada facility, built just for that purpose, wasn’t described in detail, but the company said it was the biggest in the country and built to Tier III standards. On its website, Paratus noted that the campus has solar panels and generators that can provide up to 2MVA.
The Paratus Group has two data centres located in Angola, and it finished building its facility in Zambia the previous year. It announced that in 2021 it intends to make another data centre in Namibia. In addition, Paratus Namibia operates its very own earth station.
