Internet connectivity in the country is set for a major boost after one of the leading providers announced plans to expand its network at a lower cost. Seacom said it would be targeting mainly corporate establishments in the initiative dubbed “SEACOM Business”.
The company’s management said it is extending its corporate market offering to Kenya and the entire East African region by providing enhanced broadband connectivity and Cloud services directly to corporate entities. Under the initiative, the Pan-African internet enabler is moving into the corporate segment to provide reliable data connectivity, Cloud services and consistent service quality by leveraging SEACOM’s existing network infrastructure.
“SEACOM initially focused on bringing low-cost data transmission infrastructure to other service providers in Africa. However, we were not seeing the optimal take-up of our international data capabilities to the end-user market, and the associated benefits that this can bring,” said the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Byron Clatterbuck.
The company’s Business Sales Team Leader Patrick Ndegwa, said it aims to provide corporate customers with high-speed connectivity and quality bandwidth at an affordable cost “The time is right for us to diversify our business into the corporate market with focused data offerings bundled with last-mile fibre. We believe the uptake will be tremendous as customers get a taste of our service offering, which we have already seen in South Africa,” said Ndegwa.
The new product offerings include Fibre Internet Access with options ranging from 25Mbps up to 1Gbps. The company’s Chief Executive for Kenya Joseph Muriithi stated that since the launch of its SEACOM Business offering a year ago in South Africa, the division in East Africa had already signed up almost 50 business customers, adding more each month.
“We have also recently appointed several corporate partners to support its drive into the SME market, and expect to speed up its total corporate customer acquisitions going forward,” he added.
The company is taking advantage of its abundant and scalable capacity on its undersea cable system and continent-wide IP-MPLS network, as well as the capabilities of its Cloud services, to enable corporates in Southern and East Africa regions to smoothly transition to the Cloud service.
They said the “Last Mile” access will play a crucial role in the delivery of these services as Seacom intended to boost uptake through key partnerships with local and regional fibre providers.
“We have already built out 8 metro points of presence around Nairobi, and this gives us a solid base from which to extend further with our partners. By having our own metro PoPs, we can better manage service quality and network scalability to our growing customer base,” said Clatterbuck.
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