Nokia announced a two-year deal with Liquid Telecom Kenya to upgrade fiber network to support OTN/DWDM technology with an initial network capacity of 500G.
This investment will result in a faster and more reliable connection along the route from the Indian Ocean to datacenters in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and neighboring countries.
The network upgrade — powered by the Nokia 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) — allows Liquid Telecom to meet the demand from its carrier, mobile operator and internet service provider (CSP/ISP) customers for higher-capacity inter-networking services.
The network will support connections from the submarine landing stations in Mombasa, Kenya, to major datacenters in Nairobi, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, as well as surrounding markets.
Liquid Telecom will become the first communications solutions provider to connect through their own network with nearly every country that borders Kenya whilst also providing an alternate fiber route to submarine for other landlocked countries such as Ethiopia, Rwanda and DR-Congo.
Ben Roberts, CTO of Liquid Telecom, said: “This investment comes at a time when more mobile operators are planning to increase their backbone bandwidth as they prepare for 5G which is driving the demand for high speed city to city internet links.”
The deployment – that began in October 2018 — is expected to provide enhanced services to corporate customers and FTTH users. The network investment has the potential to reach over 85 million mobile subscribers across Kenya and its neighboring countries, said Daniel Jaeger, head of the Central, East and West Africa Market Unit at Nokia.
Liquid Telecom has selected Nokia’s DWDM and OTN technologies for increased capacity and bandwidth, and the ability to support long distances. The Nokia solution allows Liquid Telecom to reuse its existing Nokia DWDM infrastructure, which reduces its capital expenditures.
