Burkina Faso-Benin Fibre-optic Link (Burkina Faso section) is a terrestrial digital-connectivity project serving Benin and Burkina Faso. It seeks to increase international bandwidth and route resilience through fibre cable, transmission equipment and cross-border interconnection facilities. The Burkina Faso–Benin fibre link remained at feasibility/design in the latest database record. No route-specific commissioning evidence for the 160 km Burkina section was confirmed by end-2025.
<p>Burkina Faso is already connected to all its neighbors, with the exception of Benin, which is already present in Porga (Border with Burkina). Thus, the realization of this link is fully integrated into PIDA PAP 2020 and the ECOWAS Regional Connectivity Integration Strategy, which has made the development of broadband infrastructure among Member States a priority. This link will be integrated into the network currently being deployed as part the National Backbone Telecommunications Project (PBNT), of which Fada N'Gourma is a main node of the national and international transmission network.</p>
<p>The section goes from Fada N'Grouma to Benin border at Porga where the physical interconnection of the optical cables will be realized with Benin Telecoms.<br />
The passive infrastructure includes two HDPE tubes, one of which will contain a 36-core G.652D cable. The length of the network is 160 km. The transmission network is IP-MPLS over OTN over DWDM with a transport capacity at the installation of 100 G. One point of presence will be created halfway to Pama.</p>
<p>The completion of this regional network will provide several important benefits, including:</p>
<p>- <strong>Financial accessibility.</strong> The new link will provide Burkina Faso with greater access to low-cost international capacity, giving Burkina Faso indirect access to the SAT3 and ACE submarine cables that land on the Benin coast. This increase in supply channels will increase competition, which will result in lower connectivity costs for operators and ISPs who, in turn, will offer lower retail prices to Internet users. </p>
<p>- <strong>Accessibility.</strong> With regard to the extension of the national network, the new link will enable the deployment of rural connectivity in the south-eastern part of Burkina Faso and the north-western part of Benin, as operators will be able to rely on this basic infrastructure to deploy medium and local infrastructure in both countries and thus reach the end users in these regions. Given the socio-economic conditions in these areas (rural, poor and sparsely populated), there is little or no financial incentive for operators to invest in this linkage without public subsidies.</p>
<p>- <strong>Security and quality of service.</strong> The new link will provide additional redundancy to the national and regional network, as part of the telecommunications traffic would be diverted to this new link in the event of failure of the other existing network links.</p>
<p>- <strong>Multiplier effect of existing infrastructures. </strong>Two fiber optic networks already reach the border of Burkina Faso-Benin (one of Benin Telecom, and the other of the Benin Electricity Community - CEB). Without a corresponding optical fiber network on the Burkinabe side and physically redundant, these networks would remain underutilized. In fact, the new link will form a physical redundancy with ONATEL-SA's terrestrial fiber-optic link, thus increasing the flow of traffic on this link and the corresponding revenues. In addition, Burkina Faso has only the border point where an interconnection of the fiber optic networks of the two countries is possible.</p>