A 36-Terabyte undersea internet cable named Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE 1) has landed in Mombasa. The project is a result of a partnership between Telkom Kenya, Somtel a private Telecoms operator and Djibouti Telecom.
DARE 1 is the fifth submarine cable to land in Kenya. The first one was TEAMS (The East African Marine System), which landed in 2009. Others are Eastern African Submarine Cable System (EASsy) and Lion2 that links Madagascar to Kenya.
Telkom Kenya owns a 23 per cent stake in TEAMs, a 5000km undersea fibre optic cable through Fujairah, UAE. A 10 per cent stake in LION2 which is a 2700km undersea fibre optic cable through Mauritius and a 2.6 per cent stake in the East African Submarine System Cable.
The project cost Ksh. 8.6 billion and it will boost access to data in the region and is expected to bring the cost of data downwards which would be a boost to the consumer. The cable took 45 days to lay given the 5,000 kilometers distance between Mombasa and Djibouti.
Telkom Kenya Managing Director of Carrier Services George Kebaso, had this to say, “This 5th cable will position Kenya as a data connectivity hub in Africa for international cables in ICT bandwidth market in improving business and will reduce cost of data.”