Telkom Kenya, the fixed and mobile operator which was sold by Orange Group to private equity firm Helios Investment Partners in June 2016, has completed the first phase of its KES600 million (USD5.7 million) upgrade project for its national backbone and metropolitan transmission networks. The upgrade is part of Telkom’s modernisation programme, which has already seen the telco invest KES5 billion in infrastructure upgrades, leading to the launch of its 4G LTE service (currently available in 32 towns and urban centres across the country) and also the doubling of 3G network capacity and coverage. The backbone improvement has created triple redundancy on the route through the use of Telkom’s own fibre, the state-owned National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI, managed by Telkom) and via Kenya Power’s overhead cables.
Telkom’s Managing Director of the Carrier Services Division, Kebaso G. Mokogi, said the investments to the backbone and metro infrastructure will offer faster, more reliable data connections to customers. ‘Our strategic intent to become the region’s infrastructure provider of choice hinges on providing the right infrastructure that delivers the right value to our customers. This investment is a renewal of our commitment to continue delivering unmatched value to our customers in Kenya and the wider East African region,’ he added.
Telkom is already working on the second phase of the infrastructure improvement project which will involve increasing capacity and redundancy to other metro cities and an extension of the backbone network into key strategic markets. With regards to enterprise business, Telkom has kicked off a fibre-to-the-building (FTTB) project, under which almost 300 commercial buildings, in a number of urban centres across the country, have been connected to Telkom’s fibre network.