Sewe said the terrestrial fibre-optic link will up the stakes in the East African telecoms scene - as the region gears up for the landing of several international undersea cables.
“The ambition for the region is to be able to connect Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania to the rest of the undersea cable network via a terrestrial cable from Mombasa through to Nairobi, Kampala, Bujumbura, Kigali and back to Dar-es-Salaam,” said Sewe.
He added: “We want East Africans to enjoy the benefits that the landing of the undersea cable offers. This new technology will allow East Africans to enjoy high-speed internet, digital television, video conferencing, tele-medicine, digital villages and many other benefits we only dreamed off in the past.”
Altech Stream East Africa, made up of Kenya Data Network of Kenya, Infocom of Uganda and Altech Stream Rwanda were the clients. East Africa's executive director, Kai Wulff said that KDN and Infocom were living up to their promise of being a one stop provider of telecoms solutions through provision of low cost bandwidth that will guarantee affordable and reliable high speed links in the region and Africa as a whole.
“We are excited to be associated with a project aimed at delivering the same - if not better - affordable telecommunications advances enjoyed by most countries in the developed world," observed Wulff. “From the time we laid our first fibre-optic cable in the year 2005 in Nairobi, we told you that we are looking to cover from Cape to Cairo. This is one step closer to our mission” he added.
He said that there will no longer be a need to go through satellite to communicate across the border as has been the case. “Your information will no longer require to travel 72,000km to the satellite to reach Uganda. This will mean a considerable reduction in internet consumer prices compared to VSAT costs,” said Wulff.
“The new Infocom / KDN fibre-optic cable will also connect Uganda to the undersea cables that have landed in Mombasa and provide the much needed regional and global communication benefits for the country and the so far ‘satellite-locked' region”, explains Hans Haerdtle, CEO of Infocom.
Last August - KDN became the first ICT company to construct a Ksh7 billion termination point at the Kenyan coast in anticipation of the East Africa's three international undersea cables.
