By Mark Kawalya
Telkom, Kenya’s largest telecom, in collaboration with the PEACE Cable company, has landed a new submarine cable in Mombasa. This is an effort by the PEACE Cable company to provide more reliable and stable connectivity services that will link Africa, Europe and Asia.
The Indian Ocean route will provide a direct connectivity route from Asia to East Africa, minimising communication delays that exist between the continents.
The PEACE cable, which is 15,000 km long, boasts high speeds of 200 Gbps for each single wavelength and a total capacity of 192Tbps.
The high capacity cable will enable Kenya and the region to meet its ever-increasing broadband capacity requirements by minimising transit times of the countries’ connectivity to Asia and Europe. This will be the start of a journey towards bringing affordable data services to Kenya and is in line with Telkom’s goal of supporting the digital transformation that is occurring in the country.
“We are very proud to work with such an excellent partner as Telkom to jointly complete this successful landing in Kenya,” Says PEACE’s COO Mr. SUN Xiaohua. He added that PEACE Cable Company will provide more diversified digital connectivity options and offer high-speed, large-capacity, and stable data access opportunities for Kenya in the future.
The PEACE cable brings the total number of submarine cables to land in Kenya to six, giving the country more flexible and secure digital connection options along with stable data access.
Mugo Kibati, CEO of Telkom, said the investment in connectivity submarine cables is strategic for the company because it sees access to the Internet as a fundamental human right.
“We are proud to contribute to Kenya’s strategic evolution to becoming a digital economy, in line with the country’s Big 4 Agenda that relies on ICTs,” said Mr. Kibati. He also stated that the connectivity cables will improve processes, boost efficiencies, and increase consistency in the delivery of internet services to Kenyans.
The expanding demand for internet-related services such as streaming, gaming and cloud computing has necessitated the importance of having a stable internet. This continued demand for consumer connectivity and data will open up markets for content development networks and co-location data centres in the country.
