Zuku, Kenya’s largest broadband operator by subscribers, has initiated a KES220 million (USD2.5 million) network upgrade, as it looks to offer improved download speeds and reduced downtime for customers. According to IT Web Africa, the upgrade is expected to be complete by the end of October, with Nairobi-based customers likely to experience speeds of up to 50Mbps. The infrastructure utilised by Zuku will be a combination of hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) cable and fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology.
Richard Alden, CEO of Zuku’s parent company, the Wananchi Group, commented: ‘Over the last two years we have had an unprecedented growth in our customer numbers, hence the need to provision more capacity in the network to accommodate the growth. This upgrade will ensure that we offer improved quality of service, to existing and new customers … The upgrade will focus on increasing network access capacity for the end user … [We will also deploy] new voice architecture so as to provide cutting edge telephony services and increase national backbone capacity.’
