South Sudan - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

South Sudan - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

South Sudan secures addition terrestrial fibre link

The civil war which erupted in South Sudan in late 2013 caused considerable damage to national telecom infrastructure. Fixed-line networks are largely restricted to urban areas, and are often subject to theft, either of equipment or copper cabling. As a result, the number of lines in service has fallen dramatically, with little incentive to invest in fixed-line infrastructure. Such investment as there is tends to go to upgrading mobile networks.

The landlocked country depends on its neighbours for transit connections to international submarine fibre cables. Two of these countries have direct access to such cables: Sudan and Kenya. Another option is to connect via Ethiopia to cables landing in Djibouti. Kenya, which is connected to the EASSy, Seacom, TEAMS, and LION cables, offered South Sudan access to its landing stations in 2012, and has extended a fibre link to the border. An alternative route via Uganda was also considered: a consortium including Sudatel and the incumbent telcos of Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya, worked on a plan for a fibre route following the Nile River but this was put on hold by the civil war.

In early 2015 the governments of Kenya and South Sudan agreed to construct a fibre link from Eldoret (Kenya) to Juba. Kenya laid 630km of cable from Eldoret to the border at Nakadok, while South Sudan was responsible for the link to Juba and on to other parts of the country. The project was completed at the end of 2021, and formed part of Kenya’s National Fibre Optic Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI), as also the Eastern Africa Regional Transport, Trade, and Development Facilitation Project. The World Bank contributed $25.5 million for the new cable.