Telecommunications and network services provider Paratus Botswana has completed the last leg of the new 840 km Botswana Kalahari Fibre (BKF) route between the Namibian border and Lobatse.

The new BWP70-million route, which was activated at the end of March, is the largest significant investment in its own infrastructure by Paratus Botswana to date and completes the last portion of the Paratus-built Trans Kalahari Fibre route running from Johannesburg to Swakopmund in Namibia.

The new route creates the lowest latency primary transit path through Botswana and Namibia to Europe and connects Botswana and neighbouring countries to various international subsea cables, and to the rest of the world.

Paratus Botswana and Paratus Namibia have worked closely to connect South Africa to the Equiano cable in Swakopmund, with the BKF route enabling more product options and helping to stimulate economic growth.

“The BKF route is part of our ongoing investment in our network infrastructure to meet the growing demand for telecommunications services in the country. The Paratus quality network services offering is now even more compelling, particularly for the financial services and banking sectors or indeed any industry sector that needs to have an independent, reliable and fully resilient connection all the time,” said Paratus Botswana country MD Shawn Bruwer.

“This section of the BKF route has taken around 18 months to complete and involved building infrastructure that includes 15 000 gum poles and 10 368 splices on 216 termination joints. It was built entirely by local Botswana contractors and, indirectly, created around 100 jobs.”

The new route runs from the Lobatse and Tlokweng borders, through Gaborone, Molepolole and Letlhakeng, and then from Kang through to Charles Hill and the border into Namibia.

This will connect Botswana to the 144 Tb Equiano subsea cable, for which the Paratus Group built the landing station in 2022, and will provide even faster, more reliable connections and more diverse routes and redundancy across the region.

“The completion of this fibre route is yet another integral intervention in the Paratus Group’s overall vision to transform Africa through exceptional digital infrastructure and customer service. It also reflects our commitment - and the Paratus Group’s commitment - to Botswana and the entire region in providing the highest quality network services,” Bruwer concluded.