INTELLIGENT CABLING
Liquid Telecom selects
Nokia to deploy multiple
channel network
iquid Telecom Kenya, part of the
leading pan-African telecoms
group Liquid Telecom, and Nokia,
have announced a two-year partnership
to upgrade their existing fibre network to
support OTN/DWDM technology with an
initial network capacity of 500G.
This will result in a faster and more
reliable connection along the route from
the Indian Ocean to data centers in Kenya,
Uganda, Rwanda and neighbouring countries.
Powered by the Nokia 1830 Photonic
Service Switch (PSS), the upgrade allows
Liquid Telecom to meet the growing demand
from its carrier, mobile operator and Internet
service provider (CSP/ISP) customers for
higher-capacity inter-networking services.
The network will support high-capacity
connections from the submarine landing
stations in Mombasa, Kenya, to major
data center in Nairobi, Kenya, Uganda
and Rwanda, as well as surrounding
markets. Liquid Telecom will become the
first communications solutions provider to
connect through their own network with
nearly every country that borders Kenya
while also providing an alternate fibre route
to submarine for other landlocked countries
such as Ethiopia, Rwanda and DR Congo.
Ben Roberts, CTO, Liquid Telecom,
said: “We believe that every individual on
the African continent has the right to be
connected. This is the vision that has been
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INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS
INTELLIGENT
TECH CHANNELS
Issue 24
driving our network expansion across Africa.
By teaming up with Nokia, we have been
able to quickly adapt to the industry’s rapid
growth within the region and greater access
to our high-speed fibre network and cloud
services across East Africa. This comes
at a time when more mobile operators
are planning to increase their backbone
bandwidth as they prepare for 5G which is
driving the demand for high speed city to
city internet links.”
The deployment began in October 2018
and is expected to provide enhanced services
to thousands of corporate customers and
FTTH users. It has the potential to reach over
85 million mobile subscribers across Kenya
and its neighbouring countries.
Daniel Jaeger, Head of the Central, East
and West Africa Market Unit at Nokia, added:
“As an industry-leading optical network
provider, Nokia has enabled customers to
maximise network capacity and efficiency
while supporting the deployment of mission-
critical services.
“With our DWDM/OTN network, Liquid
Telecom can offer the high capacity and low
latency needed for its customers, ensuring
an excellent customer experience and
ultimately connecting all of Africa to the
digital world.
“This network will be an important,
additional backbone network with Nokia
technology across Africa.”
Liquid Telecom selected Nokia’s DWDM
and OTN technologies for increased capacity
and bandwidth, and the ability to support
long distances. The Nokia solution allows
Liquid Telecom to reuse its existing Nokia
DWDM infrastructure, which reduces its
capital expenditures.
The solution will initially be available on
the following routes:
Nairobi–Mombasa: High-capacity
interconnections from Nairobi data
centres to the submarine landing stations
at Mombasa
Nairobi–Kampala: Opens a new high-
capacity route to Uganda, Rwanda
and beyond
Nairobi–Namanga: Opens a new high-
capacity route to Tanzania
Nairobi–Ethiopia: Opens a new high-
capacity route to Ethiopia and gives the
landlocked country an alternate route to
the submarine connection in Djibouti.
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