Telkom Kenya has announced plans to invest in another submarine fibre optic cable system. The new cable system seeks to connect Kenya with Asia and Europe by the end of 2021.
The undersea cable, dubbed Pakistan and East Africa Connecting to Europe (Peace), is owned by the Chinese firm Peace Cable International Network. The cable will have key landing points in Kenya, Pakistan, and France, with its second phase planned to extend to South Africa.
This will be the sixth undersea cable to land in Mombasa after the East African Marine System, of which Telkom is a shareholder, and privately-owned Seacom in 2009.
Additionally, Telkom Kenya is also a shareholder in the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSY), the Lower Indian Ocean Network (LION), and the Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE1) cable systems. These systems stretch across 4,854-kilometres under the sea, and are initially estimated to cost Ksh. 25.7 billion ($235 million).
In March 2020, a 36-Terabyte undersea internet cable named Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (DARE 1) landed in Mombasa, a project by Telkom Kenya, Somtel a private Telecoms operator and Djibouti Telecom.
The project cost Ksh. 8.6 billion and aimed to boost access to data in the region and was expected to reduce the cost of data in Kenya, 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.
DARE1 was the 5th 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.