Mid-September brought a rush of money into African internet infrastructure, IT News Africa reported. Together, two US government deals added up to about R4.07 billion (roughly $230 million) in a single week, and local deals added more.
The big deals
- WIOCC: on 16 September, the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) pledged up to R2.48 billion to the Johannesburg-based group, which runs fibre networks and data centres in more than 30 countries and supports subsea cables. Reuters and TechCentral report it is the DFC’s largest equity investment ever. WIOCC had raised R4.8 billion two weeks earlier from the Africa Finance Corporation and Saudi investor Vision Invest.
- Africell: days earlier, the US Export-Import Bank approved a R1.59 billion loan to pay for US and European mobile equipment, mainly in Angola.
- Frogfoot and Vox: in South Africa, a consortium led by investment firm DNI paid R1.6 billion for 34.8% of the two companies, which aim to connect about 360,000 homes a year.
The strategy behind it
The US says the WIOCC deal supports “trusted networks”, a phrase widely understood as an alternative to Chinese suppliers such as Huawei. Whoever funds the backbone today has a strong say in whose equipment runs on it tomorrow.
The gap to close
According to the ITU, only 36% of people in Africa used the internet in 2025, compared with 74% worldwide. Governments and development banks are funding the long national backbones that private investors avoid. Kenya’s backbone tender closes on 29 October 2026, and Nigeria plans to start building its national fibre project, known as Project BRIDGE, in 2027.
Money alone does not lay cable. Builders still face slow right-of-way permits, unreliable power, cable theft and vandalism, and the high cost of reaching each home in poorer areas. These are the same problems Nigerian operators regularly cite, alongside frequent fibre cuts during road construction.
Who pays in the end
Investors want returns and lenders want repayment, so the cost eventually flows through to wholesale prices, customer tariffs and public budgets. Whether the investment closes Africa’s internet gap depends on whether the new cables reach rural areas and not just big cities.
Source: IT News Africa, citing Reuters, TechCentral and the ITU.
