With the laying of The East African Marine System (TEAMs) undersea cable slated to begin in Decemeber, the Kenyan government is looking for an alternative routing around Somali as the cable makes it’s way from Mombasa on the coast of Kenya and terminates in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.
The Kenya ICT Board deputy CEO, Victor Kyalo, speaking at a regional telecommunications forum, said Kenya will lay an extra 90 kilometres of cable skirting around Somali’s territorial waters and will instead run the cable in international waters as it makes it’s way into the Arabian Peninsula and finally terminating in Fujairah, U.A.E. where Emirates Telecommunication Establishment (Etisalat), Kenya’s partner in the project, is located.
Civil war in Somalia has almost split the country apart with Islamists controlling the south and Somaliland to the north claiming sovereignty. This volatile situation has made the coastal areas of Somali a no-go zone for all maritime traffic after several incidents of ships being hijacked were reported in the international press.
Kyalo also said that the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication, Bitange Ndemo has visited the Lucent-Alcatel facility in France where the cable construction is going on and said that everything is going according to schedule.
The government of Kenya is a majority shareholder in this project with 85% ownership while U.A.E’s Etisalat owns 15%.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: bitange ndemo, broadband in kenya, teams, The East African Marine System, undersea cable, victor kyalo
