UUNET Kenya customers can now benefit from 100 per cent uptime after the company recently completed the installation of the second International Backbone and the setting up of a Point of Presence (POP) in the US. Previously, customers were re-routed to the US through the firm’s London POP. This new development gives them faster access to the US, both in terms of download speeds and access times.The firm’s Managing Director, Tom Omariba also said the inclusion of Cogent as the Tier 1 provider for IP transit has improved latency to the Americas, which is the real internet backbone.

“Cogent is a multinational Tier 1 Internet service provider consistently ranked as one of the top five networks in the world. Their primary service offering consists of Internet access and data transport, offered over our award-winning fiber optic, IP data-only network, along with collocation in any of our 40 Internet Data Centers. We service two customer segments: “Corporate” - small businesses to Fortune 100 companies - and “Net Centric” - access providers and content providers whose businesses rely primarily on Internet access,” said Omariba.

Added Omariba: “Our innovative, facilities-based network spans across North America, across the Atlantic and throughout Western Europe. With over59,000 miles of route fiber, we provide service to over 140 major markets and interconnect with over 2,970 other networks”.

He said the US POP has also enabled the company achieve an end to end full international redundancy on its core network, ensuring that there was no single point of failure on the company’s core network all the way to the Internet . “If London goes down for maintenance or downtime, we can route traffic for Europe via Cogent and vies versa, so full redundancy,” said Omariba.

Last year the company acquired a second international Point of Presence POP in London adding to its German POP and thereby enabling its over 600 corporate clients' access the internet and their global corporate data networks faster.