Kenya Data Networks (KDN) today announced that it has extended its fibre network into Tanzania and will be the first operator to connect the East African capitals of Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kampala and Kigali on a single fibre network.
The new 120km fibre link from Nairobi to Namanga on the border of Kenya and Tanzania is one of a number of improvements that will increase capacity and reduce latency for KDN’s customers including ISPs, carriers, homes, government organisations and businesses of all sizes.
KDN was recently acquired by Liquid Telecom which has built Africa’s largest fibre network spanning over 13,000km from the north of Uganda to Cape Town on a single thread. This new section of the network carries the capacity of multiple STM 64s and will be operational and available to KDN and Liquid Telecom customers in August this year.
Last month Liquid Telecom commissioned a gigabit circuit between Kenya and South Africa from SEACOM and increased the advertisements of many East African IP address prefixes at the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX).
The key benefit of these investments and the integration of the KDN and Liquid Telecom fibre networks is that traffic between South Africa and East Africa no longer needs to be routed via Europe. As a result, KDN and Liquid provide the lowest latency rates on the continent (down from over 400 ms to nearer 50ms) by keeping African traffic in Africa.
KDN is also using this additional capacity to provide a fibre route between Dar es Salam and Mombasa to ensure that terrestrial connectivity can be maintained in the event of any future damage to the submarine cables serving East Africa.
Nic Rudnick, CEO of Liquid Telecom, said, “We believe that technology should be for everyone and completion of the Namanga fibre will be another major milestone in consolidating Liquid’s fibre coverage as the widest in Africa and confirming our position as the leading pan African communications connectivity provider.”
Rudnick added, “With the completion of the KDN’s Namanga fibre we will provide even more secure and reliable solutions to businesses in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. This fibre will improve business opportunities providing more capacity, more routes and higher speeds to fixed and mobile operators, as well as Africa’s leading companies.”
