Liquid Telecom upgrades 4,200km of fibre optic network

Liquid Telecom has upgraded 4,200 kilometres of its fibre optic network in Kenya, as it seeks to boost the quality of its Internet services amid increased competition.

The frequent damage of the infrastructure by road contractors has affected the quality of Internet and data services offered by providers such as Liquid Telecoms.

The firm has leased the facility to major banks and has now had to compete with some of its former clients such as Safaricom and MTN Business who have also laid their fibre optic cables, alongside other providers such as Jamii Telecoms Ltd and AccessKenya.

The upgrade is also expected to reduce Liquid Telecoms’ cost of doing business.

The fibre optic network that has undergone numerous repairs has leakages and thus consumes a lot of power, thus raising operating costs.

READ: Liquid telecoms says to spend $200 million in Africa expansion

Other than increasing expenses, infrastructure providers also face penalties running into hundreds of millions of shillings from their clients for the down times.

“For our clients, the main concern is a stable Internet connection that enables them provide swift services to the public through accessing information on the national database, allowing regional staff to process requests and make real-time updates, and a fibre network is more reliable in these instances,” Ben Roberts, the Liquid Telecoms CEO said in a statement.

It is through these networks that banks, learning institutions, government offices and telecommunications companies, among others are linked to the undersea fibre optic cables, which connects Kenya to the outside world through the Internet.

Demand for fibre Internet infrastructure in the counties is driven by customers expanding to new territories, particularly banks opening rural branches, with 80 per cent of the banks in Kenya currently on the Liquid Telecom fibre network, linking ATMs as well as providing secure inter-office connections from rural branches to the head office.

The growing rural banking network has contributed to the uptake of banking services, which has grown from 13.5 per cent in 2006 to 29.2 per cent in 2013, according to the FinAccess National Survey.

Government ministries as well as parastatals setting up regional offices have also brought a sharp surge in communication needs, including access to core databases, approvals of transactions, e-mail and information sharing within ministries and sub counties across many locations.

Liquid Telecom has connected 25 parastatals plus their branches across the country, including 25 centres for Kenya Agricultural Research Institute.