13 March 2024

Paratus Zambia, a subsidiary of the pan-African network operator Paratus Group, began the project in the fourth quarter of 2022 to construct a 700km open access metro fibre network which will improve high-quality connectivity in under-served communities in ten Zambian cities and towns. With this newly built fibre network, Paratus will leverage the fibre cores and provide reliable, high-capacity last mile connectivity to its clients.

By building this network, Paratus Zambia will provide wholesale services to mobile network operators and internet service providers. The project has created around hundreds of jobs for local communities, has enhanced existing Paratus infrastructure, and will now offer more reliable services and improved coverage. The network will also link to the Paratus carrier-neutral data centre in Lusaka where Paratus serves local businesses directly with high-quality connectivity, colocation, and cloud services.

“We are very proud to have worked with Meta on this project and we are delighted to be helping to provide millions of people and thousands of businesses with the opportunity to connect to the internet via a faster and more secure fiber network,” said Paratus Zambia country manager, Marius van Vuuren. “This intervention aligns with our overall Group strategy to transform Africa through exceptional digital infrastructure and customer service. It also complements significant investments we have already made in our Zambian network, such as our fibre link from Lusaka to Chirundu and our own state-of-the-art data centre in Lusaka to house content locally.”

“Our customers are already enjoying the benefits of this expanded metro network and we intend to keep leveraging our infrastructure to continue offering top-tier services to the Zambian people. Paratus is ready to collaborate with network providers to enhance and improve their service offerings,” said Paratus Zambia general manager for infrastructure, Chama Chinyanta.