Liquid Telecom has acquired Rwandatel, Rwanda’s fixed line network operator plus its copper and fibre network, its customer base minus land.
Liquid Telecom, a wholesale carrier has built Africa’s largest fibre network – which runs from the north of Uganda to Cape Town. In total, its award-winning Pan-African fibre network spans over 13,000km across Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho and South Africa. Liquid’s fibre network is the first to cross country borders and covers Africa’s fastest-growing economies where no fixed network has existed before.
Nic Rudnick, CEO of the Liquid Telecom Group, said: “Liquid Telecom is expanding rapidly and this is an important and strategic investment. Rwanda is an outstanding FDI destination and we are very confident in the country’s economic future and growth prospects.”
This transaction comes four months after Liquid acquired the East African assets of The Altech Group (JSE code:ALT) including a controlling interest in Kenya Data Networks (KDN).
Sam Nkusi, Chairman of Liquid Telecom Rwanda, said: “Our priority is to quickly rehabilitate Rwandatel’s core network and to build out the access network in order to serve Rwanda’s people and businesses with the most reliable, high speed, and affordable telecommunications. Customers can be assured of service continuity, new products and value added services along with improvements in network availability and performance.
Liquid Telecom Rwanda will now contribute to Rwanda’s ICT4D and Agaciro vision by providing true broadband services with comparable data speeds to anywhere in the developed world.”
Work on network improvements and expansion is expected to start within weeks.
