Paratus Group, a telecommunications operator and network provider, has turned on a new 2,000km fibre route linking Goma, a city in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), to Mombasa, Kenya. The fibre route runs through Nairobi, Kampala, and Kigali, and is already carrying traffic for its wholesalers, including internet service providers (ISPs).
How this route actually works: Instead of data traffic hopping between fragmented national networks, Paratus stitched together a single protected terrestrial route with direct access to subsea cables at the coast. From Goma, data can now move to data centres in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya, then out to the world.
This matters for the Eastern DRC: Because of the region’s geographical isolation from the major fibre-optic hubs on the coast, Goma and the surrounding regions have relied on patchy, expensive cross-border networks. A continuous terrestrial route to the coast reduces latency and provides ISPs with more predictable pricing. This also means cloud access becomes smoother and cross-border payments face fewer bottlenecks.
The bigger picture: The new route complements Paratus Group’s East-West fibre backbone, which stretches from Mozambique to Namibia and interconnects with the Equiano subsea cable, owned by Google, and nudges eastern DRC closer to being a full participant in regional internet traffic.
