Optical & Fixed Networks

Ethio Telecom’s Horizon Fiber Initiative heads to pre-commercialisation phase

Ethio Telecom’s Horizon Fiber Initiative heads to pre-commercialisation phase

Ethio Telecom revealed on Thursday it has held a stakeholders' workshop with Djibouti Telecom and Sudatel Group to push their planned Horizon Cross-Border Terrestrial Fiber Initiative into the pre-commercialisation phase.

The Horizon Fiber initiative – first announced by all three telcos in December 2024 and formalised this past February – aims to link subsea cable landing stations in Djibouti and Port Sudan via Ethiopia.

The goal is to create a scalable terrestrial route that enhances regional and international connectivity to support next-generation workloads like cloud computing, AI, fintech, e-commerce, and digital content delivery.

The Horizon Fiber initiative is also pitched as offering global carriers and hyperscalers a reliable, low-latency alternative route for subsea cable traffic across the Red Sea, which has been susceptible to frequent disruptions due to subsea cable cuts in recent years.

According to a LinkedIn post from Ethio Telecom, the workshop in Addis Ababa focused on the commercial and technical requirements to develop the terrestrial fibre corridor across the region with a fully protected, redundant architecture. Ethio Telecom said representatives from Ciena, Nokia and BringCom participated in those discussions.

Other participants in the workshop sessions included Google, Meta (via HIPConsult), Microsoft, Airtel Africa, Bayobab, WIOCC, center3, Saudi Vision, and China Mobile International.

Ethio Telecom said participating partners and global operators “expressed strong interest in leveraging and monetizing the multi-terabit capabilities of the Horizon Fiber corridor.”



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