Djibouti Telecom has announced plans to extend its subsea cable, DARE1 (Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1) system, along Africa’s east coast, adding new landings in Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, and South Africa.
The subsea cable expansion, announced on Thursday, intends to increase reach and improve route diversity, building on the success of DARE1, which connects Djibouti, Somalia, and Kenya.
Djibouti Telecom’s regional subsea cable, DARE1 (Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1), connects essential hubs on the Horn of Africa to the rest of the world.
The system, which is built to provide high-capacity, low-latency, and resilient connectivity, promotes the expansion of cloud, content, and digital services while fortifying regional integration.
As a regional African cable, the extension will increase capacity and diversify routes for cloud providers, carriers, and businesses from East to Southern Africa.
The deployment of the subsea cable system begins in 2026 and is targeted for completion in 2028.
Benefits of Djibouti’s subsea cable expansion
The benefits of this extension include increased resilience and diversity of routes for both domestic and foreign traffic, reduced latency and increased capacity for enterprise, cloud, and content services, scalable international bandwidth to support the region’s digital economy, and enhancement of current systems to offer dependable, low-latency connectivity to international hubs.
All new segments will connect at the Mombasa (Nyali) trunk station for smooth service on the new and existing routes.
The new route between Mombasa and Durban is expected to be 3,200–3,500 km long.
Djibouti Telecom remains dedicated to providing strong subsea infrastructure to link African markets.
Significance of subsea cables
Subsea cables continue to be the unseen backbone of the internet as the demand for faster, more secure, and more intelligent digital infrastructure grows worldwide.
Despite the development of satellite technologies, more than 99 per cent of international data still travels via underwater fibre optic cables.
These cables silently support everything from cloud and streaming services to business operations and financial transactions. Djibouti Telecom is honoured to be at the heart of this ecosystem.
Due to the company’s strategic location at the intersection of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia and its continuous investments in vital infrastructure, Djibouti has emerged as a primary digital gateway for East Africa and a growing centre for global connectivity.
About Djibouti Telecom
Founded in 1999, Djibouti Telecom is a central telecom hub for both the East African and international markets. Djibouti is ideally situated at the intersection of three continents, providing easy access to important markets.
It offers Internet, mobile, and fixed services throughout Djibouti and is renowned for its high network availability and bandwidth.
Its vast network provides a wide range of voice, data/IP, and capacity services, extending from Eastern and Southern Africa to the Middle East and Europe.
Djibouti Telecom is a key participant in the global telecommunications industry because it guarantees smooth international connectivity.