Altech Stream East Africa—a unit of Altech comprising Infocom Uganda, Kenya Data Networks and Altech Stream Rwanda—has announced that it has completed a fibre-optic line running from Mombasa (Kenya) via Nairobi to Kampala (Uganda). The New Vision newspaper reports that the operators have completed the 1,500-kilometre cable, which has a capacity of 10 Gbps (STM-64). The project also includes completion of a fibre-optic link from Kampala to Kigali (the Rwandan capital) within the next six to eight weeks. “The ambition for the region is to be able to connect Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania to the rest of the undersea cable network via a terrestrial cable from Mombasa through to Nairobi, Kampala, Bujumbura, Kigali and back to Dar-es-Salaam,” said Fred Sewe, the managing director of the project's contractors, Green Future, at a ceremony in Kampala.
Last year, South African conglomerate Altech acquired Kenya Data Networks (KDN), Infocom Uganda and Swift Global (an ISP in Kenya and Tanzania), and established Altech Stream Rwanda and Africa Digital Networks Ltd in the Democratic Republic of Congo. KDN had a 3,800-kilometre, long-haul, fibre-optic network in operation in Kenya by February 2009, including 950 kilometres of metropolitan area network in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Eldoret. KDN has also invested in both the SEACOM and TEAMS submarine cables that have now landed at Mombasa and will enter service shortly.
