NAIROBI, Kenya, Sept 1 – Meta has taken a stake in Safaricom’s ambitious $2.9 (Sh379.9 billion) subsea fibre-optic cable project, strengthening digital links between East Africa and the Middle East.
Safaricom is listed as the project proponent in the Facebook submarine partnership, dubbed the Daraja Fibre Optic Cable.
“The Daraja Project is expected to go live in 2026, delivering much-needed internet capacity and enhanced reliability between Oman and Kenya, supplementing the fast-growing demand in both countries,” says the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report filed with Kenya’s National Environment Management Authority (Nema).
“The project will underpin the further growth of 4G, 5G, and fixed broadband access for hundreds of thousands of people.”
The Daraja system will deploy 24 fibre pairs, compared with the usual 8 to 16 on existing cables, giving it significantly higher capacity.
Safaricom obtained clearance last month from Nema to land the cable at Nyali beach, with routes stretching into Tanzanian waters as well.
The investment dovetails with Meta’s broader strategy to build a 50,000-kilometre global subsea cable network, including the 2Africa and Pearls system that already connects dozens of countries across Africa, Europe, and Asia.
For Kenya, the Oman–Mombasa link is expected to enhance redundancy for a market that has experienced costly internet disruptions from breaks in the Red Sea and East African cable systems.
It also positions Mombasa as a critical landing hub, joining ongoing projects such as Africa-1, PEACE, and the DARE1 extension.
