East Africa’s Largest Submarine Cable Lands in Mombasa
By Betty Kiptum, Kenya Broadcasting Corporation
March 6, 2020
Data consumers in East Africa could see a significant reduction in their bills with the landing of East Africa’s largest submarine cable, Djibouti Africa Regional Express with the moniker DARE 1.
The 4000 kilometers fibre optic cable which has landed in Nyali, Mombasa City is further expected to enhance high broadband connectivity in the region delivering 36 terabytes of data.
Dare 1 becomes the fifth undersea cable broadband infrastructure to link Kenya with the rest of the world after landing of SEACOM, Easts African Marine Cable System, Eastern African Submarine Cable System (EASsy) and Madagascar linked, Lion2.
Building and laying of DARE 1 cable undersea has been ongoing for the past three months and terminated in Mombasa, leaving Telkom with the Task of laying and managing the inland fibre optic cable to the various regions across the country.
The Kshs 8.6 Billion is backed to position Kenya as a data connectivity hub in Africa for international cables in ICT bandwidth market through reduced data charges.
The DARE 1 sub-sea cable is a 3-fiber pair, with a capacity of 36TB each with a lifespan of 20 years. Kenya has access to both, one an express route from Djibouti to Mombasa and the second one terminating into Somalia and then Kenya.
The data cable is also expected to cut latency for firms and customers relying on cloud-based solutions.
According to the World Bank, for every 10% of the population that is connected to the broadband, there is a 1.38% impact to GDP in developing nations. The subsea cable is a joint project involving the government of Kenya through Telkom Kenya, Djibouti Telcom and Somalia’s Somtel.
