DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi instructed his ministers, during a June cabinet meeting, to prioritize satellite connectivity projects — notably Musk’s Starlink and Monacosat — to overcome the high costs and delayed rollout of a planned 50,000-kilometer national fiber backbone under its Digital Horizon 2025 plan, launched in 2019. According to the telecom regulator, as of 2023 less than 10,000 kilometers had been deployed in sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country by area.
The Monacosat partnership involves building new satellite infrastructure, not just leasing capacity from the existing MonacoSAT-1 platform. Slides presented to the Congolese government highlighted the coming Monacosat-2 series, each capable of delivering 200 Gbps in internet speeds.
Beyond the satellite itself, the plan envisions ground infrastructure including control and telemetry stations and rural connectivity links, with additional applications for education, health, and onshore industries. It is also aimed at reducing the country’s digital divide “particularly in rural and remote areas where telecommunications infrastructure remains insufficient,” Anvam said.