Exciting news for users of Kenya’s biggest Telecommunications company Safaricom as it on the 27th of February 2019, announced the deployment of a 400G network link to cater for the increasing demand for mobile data and fibre across its network. The deployment makes Safaricom among the first in the world to commercially deploy the solution.
The new 400G link (provided by Chinese technology giant Huawei, following its partnership with the Kenyan Telco) will enable Safaricom to be able to support the increase in video consumption as well as a demand for higher video quality from both its home and mobile customers. Safaricom can now also better support the emergence of smart homes which sees appliances connected to the internet to provide users with the ability to continually monitor and control them both at home and remotely.
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CEO of Safaricom Bob Colymore (pictured on the left) with Safaricom’s Chief Technology Officer Thibaud Rerolle during a function in Nairobi, Kenya. PHOTO by SALATON NJAU
“The 400G solution will support the continued growth of our network which is being driven by an explosion in internet usage. Mobile data usage on our network has been doubling year-on-year while our fibre network now reaches more than 220,000 homes and 17,000 businesses across more than ten towns. It was therefore prudent to invest in the latest network technology to ensure that we can support the demand from our customers for years to come,” said Thibaud Rerolle, the Chief Technology Officer at Safaricom.
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Supported by Huawei (as stated earlier in this article), the high capacity link will quadruple the company’s capacity to carry internet traffic over 500 kilometres. The link will achieve a speed of up to 400 Gigabits per second, an upgrade from the previous connection which offered speeds of 100 Gbps.
Safaricom and Huawei announced deployment of the solution at the ongoing Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. It is the world’s first end-to-end 400G backbone network.
Safaricom’s chief technology officer Thibaud Rerolle said the company’s partnership with Huawei will increase the telco’s efficiency and reliability of services.
In the two years prior to September 2018, Safaricom experienced a growth in average data usage per customer which went from 160 Megabytes per customer per month to 640 Megabytes per customer per month. Four times the previous number.
Safaricom also saw its 4G coverage grow to more than 2,600 sites, as it now currently provides coverage to more than 53 per cent of the country’s population while its 3G coverage now offers high-speed broadband to more than 91 per cent of the population.
To accommodate its growing network coverage, Safaricom has also laid more than 5,500 kilometres of fibre linking its masts in more than 16 major towns.
The 400G network will be rolled out in two phases with Nairobi and Mombasa set to be the first to be connected.