HIGH-SPEED INTERNET COSTS IN KENYA SET TO DROP

Kenyans will soon access high speed Internet at a lower cost as service providers take up part of the National Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) to deliver the last mile to consumers.

By the end of June, the government will start laying fibre optic cables in the second and last phase of the NOFBI initiative.

According to the Information, Communications and Technology Authority, which is overseeing the project, civil works for the $72-million second phase are complete and the laying of cables will cover the entire country by December. Thirteen counties, among them Kisumu, Embu, Machakos and Bomet, will be covered.

“Internet prices should come down drastically — probably by 20 per cent — because infrastructure takes the biggest share of cost of production. The government’s aim is to help the ISPs, and they should in turn lower the prices to their customers,” said Victor Kyalo, the chief executive officer of the ICT Authority.

Once complete, the Internet is expected to offer speeds of 400 gigabits per second, from 10 gigabits.

AccessKenya Group, one of the biggest data network carriers in the country, said it hopes to utilise fibre from NOFBI and other ISPs to widen its presence.

“AccessKenya will now use the additional fibre to reroute traffic in case of an emergency, while providing additional resiliency to traffic failures,” said Raymond Macharia, the chief technical officer of AccessKenya.

Cross border connection costs are expected to come down with the ISPs having the option to utilise the connections in other countries.

Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda are expanding the One Network Area initiative to include data and mobile money services.

In August, Tanzania will commence the construction of the third phase of the National Information and Communication Technology Broadband Backbone to connect all its districts. In Uganda, data transmission backbone infrastructure is set to enter its third phase this year.

In 2013, PTA Bank approved a $11.5 million loan to build a national fibre optic network in Burundi, covering Bujumbura, 17 provinces. Between 2009 and 2011, Rwanda spent $95 million constructing a 2,300-km fibre optic telecommunications network across the country to link it to undersea cables running along the East African seaboard.

The East African