As the connectivity battle intensifies in the region, UUNET Kenya has acquired a second international Point of Presence (PoP) in London after the first one in Fuchsstadt, Germany which they have been using since in 2005. According to the UUNET Kenya Managing Director, Mr. Tom Omariba, the PoP will reduce the number of hops its corporate clients take to access the internet and their global corporate data networks.  

“In addition to our customers accessing the internet faster, we will be able to offer additional new solutions like the international Private Line Circuits (IPLC) private network,” said Omariba. The move is in line with the company’s fibre implementation strategy to interconnect with the major global internet carriers through the two international PoPs. This investment which will guarantee its customers high speed internet access coupled with redundancy to Asia, Europe, Americas and the rest of the world via a global fibre network.  The company recently migrated all its corporate customers from satellite powered internet to fibre optic cable, doubling their bandwidth and increasing internet speeds in the process. Omariba said the connection to international data superhighway through the London PoP will ensure a world class service and help support very high capacities in the East African region. “We have just finished our internal backbone end to end tests and hence we are now ready to offer our fibre solutions on this new platform,” said Omariba. The migration will see UUNET build capacity to provide end to end managed services with high internet availability.It will also see the company provide other advanced data services like International Private Line Circuits (IPLCs) and International Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). The migration of UUNET’s clients to fibre came after the installation of a state of the art equipment purchased from US based Juniper Networks as part of its KSh750 million (US$10 million) investment in system upgrading. The company commissioned XON Systems Professional Services, a South African based Juniper service provider and partner to assist with design and migration to the Seacom fibre optic cable. The completion of the London PoP is a culmination of a service improvement process that UUNET Kenya has been has been undertaking for the last two months. “This process unveils a new dawn of unlimited opportunities with UUNET. We are committed to providing our clients with unmatched quality products and services both locally and internationally,” added Omariba. UUNET Kenya is currently obtaining internet  capacity from the Seacom undersea cable and plans to obtain additional capacity from The East African Marine Systems (TEAMS) and the yet to land East African Submarine systems (EASSY) which they own majority shareholding through their parent company MTN Business and Telkom SA.