The East African country is reported to have the highest bandwidth per person in Africa, the fastest speeds and one of the lowest internet rates.
“Investment in the continent’s connectivity is creating multiple benefits that Kenya demonstrates as a clear example of a virtuous circle, where each investment accelerates the next, with an ever increasing footprint of beneficiaries,” Ben Roberts, Liquid Telecom Kenya CEO said during a presentation on a report on ‘Lifting barriers to internet development in Africa’.
According to the report, Kenya has outdone itself in ensuring it tackles infrastructure barriers that have hindered it from emerging as a leader in the internet market. Statistics from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) released this year indicate that internet penetration in Kenya stands at 52.3 per cent, placing it in the lead board in the region.
“Kenya has achieved a confluence of infrastructure and provision that has positioned it with the highest growth in internet take-up compared to income per capita in Africa. It has effectively become an outlier in its internet take-up, and seen Nairobi join Johannesburg as one of Africa’s two regional internet hubs,” Roberts said.
Kenya's 42 counties has experienced 60% internet penetration during the Jubilee government making it a necessary tool for doing business and an initiative to business ventures. Leading internet providers have laid down infrastructure in homes and areas where internet connection was unthinkable. Facebook has also teamed up with Airtel to provide affordable internet.
Kenya is said to have more undersea cables than its peers in the region. The nation boasts of a 20-fold increase in international bandwidth in the country to 20 gigabytes per second.
“The investment in this key national and local infrastructure is absolutely key to further increasing African internet speeds and reducing the cost of internet use to all users,” Roberts said.
Meanwhile, the East African Community (EAC) is set to receive continuity of internet connectivity as a result of Liquid Telecom’s East Africa Fibre Ring which connects Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and back into Kenya. This is the first fully redundant regional fibre ring, connecting EAC countries to each other and the rest of the world.
SOURCE: Daily Mail
