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Monday, June 16, 2014 

Liquid Telecom finishes Internet ring

PLEASED: Rudnick said customers will soon feel the benefits of the $20 million investment.

NAIROBI, Kenya — A new regional fibre ring will improve Internet resilience compared with the previous situation in East Africa when routing options are unavailable.

Liquid Telecom has  announced that it has completed the construction of the East Africa Fibre Ring which connects Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania; creating the first fully redundant regional fibre ring, connecting these countries to each other and the rest of the world. 

 “This is a huge milestone for East Africa. By providing our nations with a 21st century broadband network that directly connects us to each other and the outside world, Liquid Telecom continues to help the economic development of our region. I deeply admire, commend and give thanks to the company for their ongoing commitment, investment and resolve in creating a fibre ring of this scale,” Dr. Richard Sezibera, the Secretary General of the East African Community said.

Nic Rudnick, CEO of the Liquid Telecom Group said, “Customers will immediately start to feel the benefits from our $20 million investment in the region. The completion of the East African Fibre ring takes us another step towards building Africa’s digital future and giving better value for everyone using our network.”

Now businesses across the region can receive continuity of Internet connectivity and a much more reliable service.

The East Africa Fibre Ring ensures that Liquid Telecom customers will not be affected by fibre cuts, which have blighted users in Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda up to now.  Network outages will no longer cause long periods of down-time when businesses cannot connect to the internet. For the first time, in the event of a fibre cut, internet traffic is automatically and instantly re-routed around the ring, giving consistently high speeds and continuous uptime for businesses and their customers, ensuring business continuity across the region.

The new East African Fibre Ring ensures more reliability and security of data connectivity, internet and business services than has ever been available, with Liquid Telecom showing measurable service improvements and superior SLA’s to businesses.

Nick Rudnick, CEO of the Liquid Telecom Group, said: “This is a historic service improvement for the people and businesses of east Africa, especially those in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, who will not have experienced such reliable internet previously. This pioneering achievement will add value to east African businesses and enable online trade within the East African community and globally, with reliable connectivity comparable to anywhere else in the world.”

The new fibre ring forms part of Liquid Telecom’s Pan-African fibre network, the largest single fibre network on the continent, spanning more than 17,000km across country borders and connecting areas where no fixed network has existed before. The completion of the ring is just the latest in a series of major achievements for multi-award-winning Liquid Telecom, a pioneering company which is widely recognized to have changed the face of telecoms in Africa.  

By Humphrey Liloba, Monday, June 16th, 2014