Nairobi's Muthaiga and Parklands residential areas are to experience improved internet services from Orange telecom. Residents in the area will enjoy fixed line services which have been integrated with fibre network to deliver broadband internet access to their homes. This development is a core part of the firm’s drive to take up the pole position in the data segment in line with its corporate ambition.

Orange follows the European system of deploying high speed broadbands. Customers will be able to access broadband from their landline handsets in addition to voice calling. They will also have a choice of using the fixed lines or wireless broadband.

With this integration of copper and fibre infrastructures, these areas will experience enormous speeds on internet connections compared to before. Orange also launched the “Orange Double Play” internet package that will see up to 8Mbps speeds unlike the old 2Mbps speed connection. With this, one is able to download up to 60GB of files from the internet without any strains to the system.

Telkom Kenya CEO Mickael Ghossein explained that the novel Orange Double Play service had come close in the heels of the highly successful internet, 3G which has already registered rave reviews in the market.

“With speeds of upto 8Mbps, we now have a network easily scalable to transmit video signals like in the developed countries. We are already in talks with our partners which will see the introduction of Triple pay services in future,” says Mickael.

With over 2000 customers in Muthaiga, this area has been prone to cable cuts. To date, weak cables have been replaced by fibre which is of better quality and convenience. It’s also easier to repair fibre cuts which take four hours compared to copper cuts that take two days.

The telcom firm will then provide equipment between the 12 and 24 months of subscription to its customers free of charge. In future it plans to move and engage in GSM data.